Investigating issues of importance for the

early childhood profession

TCHR3001
Early Childhood Matters
Tutorial Week 2
 Acknowledgement of Country

WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE PEOPLE OF

THE WOI WURRUNG AND BOON
WURRUNG LANGUAGE GROUPS OF
THE EASTERN KULIN NATION ON
WHOSE UNCEDED LANDS WE
CONDUCT THE BUSINESS OF THE
UNIVERSITY. WE RESPECTFULLY
ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR ANCESTORS
AND ELDERS, PAST AND PRESENT, AND
EMERGING.
Why is it important for children to learn about Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander culture?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxLXXl7zKqY

Understanding, valuing and supporting the rich and unique aspects of Indigenous
culture helps all early childhood services to encourage and support inclusion for
Indigenous children, and strengthen awareness of Indigenous cultures for all
children.
However, Indigenous children are under-represented in ECEC services because
mainstream providers are not always available and affordable, or they may not
offer culturally safe environments.
4 TCHR3001 Early
Childhood Matters
Early childhood professionals face several challenges and issues while working
in early childhood services and it is essential that teachers have an awareness
of the range of issues they may face with children and their families. This unit
provides students with an understanding of the key issues, debates and
challenges in contemporary early childhood education and care (ECEC).
Students develop skills to investigate and critically examine issues from a
range of perspectives and argue their position on these issues with reference to
authoritative literature and their personal approach/philosophy of learning,
development and teaching within ECEC.
Modules
 module 1: contemporary issues for the early childhood professionals
 module 2: investigating issues of importance for the early childhood
profession
 module 3: contemporary issues for parents in ECEC
 module 4: contemporary issues that affect children
 module 5: contemporary issues for Australian communities
 module 6: global childhood issues
 Legislative and regulatory requirements

All children’s services in Australia must comply with the legislation and regulation.
 The National Quality Framework (NQF) is part of the Australian Government's agenda for early childhood
education and childcare focused on providing Australian families with high-quality, accessible and affordable
integrated early childhood education and childcare. The NQF aims to raise quality and drive continuous
improvement and consistency in education and care services through:
• The Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 (VIC)
• The Education and care services National Regulations 2011
• The National Quality Standards
• The Early Years Learning Framework
• a national quality rating and assessment process
• minimum qualifications of staff and educator to child ratios
 National Quality Framework (NQF)

State and territory governments are responsible for the health, safety, wellbeing and educational outcomes
of children. State-based education departments do this under National Law through the National Quality
Framework (NQF). The NQF sets the rules for how education and care is delivered to children. The NQF
includes two nationally approved learning frameworks that support and promote children’s learning.
Providers must be approved by their state government to deliver the NQF.
The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) is an independent national
authority that helps administer the NQF.
The NQF applies to most childcare providers and services, including:
• Centre Based Day Care
• Family Day Care
• Outside School Hours Care
• Preschool and kindergarten.
 National Quality Standards

The Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) has developed and
implemented a national quality standard (NQS) that addresses the quality of the learning environment in
ECEC services. The NQS comprises seven quality areas that early childhood educators implement
(Phillips & Boyd, 2023). They are:
 QA1: the educational programme and practice;
 QA2: children's health and safety;
 QA3: the physical environment;
 QA4: staffing arrangements;
 QA5: relationships with children;
 QA6: collaborative partnerships with families and communities; and
 QA7: governance and leadership (Australian Children's Education and Quality Authority (ACECQA),
2023).
Within each quality area are relevant standards and elements that guide ECEC services' quality practice.

Let’s watch the following video to have more understanding about NQS:
What is the National Quality Standard?
 Quality assessment and rating process
The Australian government has invested heavily to support children's
learning and development with the establishment of the National Quality
Framework (NQF) that resulted from the Council of Australian
Governments (COAG) (2008) Partnership Agreement. The NQF aims to
raise the provision of quality ECEC with continuous improvement
embedded in the implementation of a national law and national
regulations, the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (Department of
Education Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009), a National
Quality Standard (NQS), and a national quality assessment and rating
(A&R) process (Australian Children's Education and Quality Authority
(ACECQA), 2023). ECEC services in Australia are assessed for the
provision of quality under an Assessment and Rating (A&R) process
against the seven quality area of NQS.
 Activity: analyse the data and reflect
o What does the figure tell you about the
overall quality ratings of ECEC services?
o In which quality areas services need to
focus more to make improvements?
o What issues do you consider to have
lower ratings in some areas?
o By making link with your teaching
philosophy explain that why these issues
matter to you as an EC professional?
 Australian Early Childhood Government Policy

In Australia, early childhood education and care is delivered by providers and services in
the states and territories and subsidised by the Australian Government. The Australian
Government, through the Department of Education and Services Australia, administers the
Child Care Subsidy (CCS). CCS is generally paid to providers who pass it on to families
as a fee reduction. Providers must be approved by the department to receive CCS. The
department is also responsible for the legislation that underpins CCS.
 Quality assessment and rating of ECEC services

In late 2022, 88% of Australian ECEC services were assessed as Meeting or Exceeding the
NQS rating (Australian Children's Education Quality Authority (ACECQA), 2022). Five years
ago, just 73% of services were assessed as Meeting the NQS rating (ACECQA, 2022)
demonstrating the significant improvement of provision of quality of ECEC. Yet only 27%
of these services achieved a high-quality rating of Exceeding the NQS rating. Furthermore,
there were 12% of services that did not meet the NQS, that is, they had a rating of
Working Toward the NQS or Significant improvement required (ACECQA, 2022). This falls
short of the NQF goal to provide quality ECEC for all children (Fenech et al., 2012) 10 years
after the implementation of the NQF.
 Activity
Take some time to reflect on your teaching philosophy in relation to quality program and practice in ECEC. This will provide you
the opportunity to consider the issue in the context of the assessment.
• What do you believe a quality program 'looks like' for children?
• What does the EYLF (AGDE, 2022)Open this document with ReadSpeaker docReader say about quality in relation to
program and practice?
• What does the NQS (ACECQA, 2023)Open this document with ReadSpeaker docReader discuss in relation to a quality
ECEC program?
• What practices will you enact to ensure children are being supported within a quality learning program as a teacher in
ECEC?
 You might also like to take some time to think about how will you incorporate the vision of quality outlined in the EYLF (AGDE,
2022)Open this document with ReadSpeaker docReader into your practices as an early childhood professional and explore what
a quality program 'looks like' in relation to Quality Area 1 of the NQS by using this link to explore the ACECQA resources for
this area.
As you engage in this thinking and reading, reflect on how you would enact these areas in your own practices, and how you
might articulate these practices to families and others.
Make some notes on your reflections over these areas and bring them to your Week 2 tutorial where we will explore this
issue and its application within professional practice further (if you are going to select this issue for your Task 1 response,
the tutorial discussion will be a great place to refine and challenge and thinking and reflections!).
 Snapshot about early childhood education and care in Australia

According to September quarter 2024 report,

1,523,470 children from 1,086,610 families attended a
CCS approved service.
50.4% of children aged 0 to 5 and 35.3% of children
aged 0 to 12 used approved care.
Of children in care:
• 58.2% (845,980 children) attended Centre Based
Day Care
• 39.0% (566,600 children) attended Outside
School Hours Care
• 4.9% (71,340 children) attended Family Day Care.
New South Wales had the largest share of children
attending approved care, at 31.8% or 461,860
children. South Australia had the largest
proportional increase, at 2.7% or 2,640 children.
41,380 children accessed Additional Child Care
Subsidy.

Source: Child Care Subsidy data report – September

quarter 2024 - Department of Education, Australian
Government
 Snapshot about early childhood education and care in Australia

65,070 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

attended approved care, up 5.6% from September
quarter 2023.
New South Wales had the largest share of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander children attending approved care,
at 36.9%.
The majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
using care attended Centre Based Day Care, at 68.1%.
This compares with 58.2% for all children in care.
29.5% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children using
approved care attended Outside School Hours Care,
compared to 39.0% of all children.

Source: Child Care Subsidy data report – September quarter

2024 - Department of Education, Australian Government
 A Path to Universal Early Childhood Education and Care

The Australian, state and territory governments share responsibility for the early childhood
education and care (ECEC) sector, which comprises centre-based day care, preschools,
family day care, outside school hours care and in home care. The Australian Government
asked the Productivity Commission to undertake an inquiry into the ECEC sector in Australia
and make recommendations that will support affordable, accessible, equitable and high-
quality ECEC that reduces barriers to workforce participation and supports children’s
learning and development.
The report presents the Commission’s analysis and assessment of progress towards these
policy goals under the current policy, regulatory, funding and governance settings, and
presents recommendations to improve upon these settings as a pathway forward to achieve
a universal ECEC system.
In making recommendations, the Commission has had a particular focus on removing
barriers to and encouraging participation in ECEC for children and families who are
experiencing vulnerability and disadvantage.
Example of an identified issue from A Path to Universal Early Childhood Education and Care

Many of the children who do not attend ECEC are very young and are cared for
by their families at home, supported by policies such as paid parental leave and
the parenting payment. One-in-four three-year-olds and one-in-ten four-year-
olds are not enrolled in any ECEC.
In some cases, older children do not attend ECEC because of their parents’
choices and preference to care for their own children or use informal care. In
other cases, however, a lack of suitable options discourages families from
enrolling their children or limits their participation. These children are more likely
to live in regional or remote areas, where ECEC availability can be patchy, and
the quality of services tends to be poorer.
There are also many families who find that services are unaffordable or cannot
cater to their children’s needs.
 Activity: A Path to Universal Early Childhood Education and Care

A Path to Universal Early Childhood Education

and Care.
After reading the above-mentioned report share
your critical thoughts to answer to the
following questions:
• What does this information tell you about
issues in early childhood education?

• How are they determined?

• What can be done about issues under

differing government jurisdictions?
 Quality and the early childhood workforce

While there are many components of quality in early

childhood education and care, the early childhood
workforce plays a key role.
Educators impact all aspects of ECEC quality, making
decisions about both the environment and the program
that will be provided to children (Simpson et al., 2024).
Teacher and educator qualifications and practice thus
directly impact upon the quality of both the ECEC service,
and on the experiences of children within these settings
(Manning et al., 2017).
Torii et al., (2017) highlight the critical link between
children's educational outcomes and early childhood
educators who have the skills to combine "explicit
teaching of skills and concepts with sensitive and warm,
play‐based interactions".
 Investigating issues of importance for the early childhood
profession
Global efforts to strengthen access to higher quality early childhood education and
care (ECEC) in the first five years of life have led to a surge of interest in the
professional context and nature of educators’ work in these settings (Irvine et al.,
2024).
International research and policy reviews (e.g., OECD, 2018) identify educators’
responsive relationships and positive and meaningful interactions with children as
the most potent influence to predict children’s ongoing learning, development, and
wellbeing (Ulferts et al., 2019). However, there is limited recognition of the ECEC
workforce with ongoing difficulties associated with lower wages and contested
professional status (Phillips et al., 2016; Thorpe et al., 2020).
 Workforce challenges constrain the availability and
quality of ECEC
Lack of staff as the biggest challenge facing the sector, some referring to it as a
‘workforce crisis’. ECEC services have been delaying expansion plans, closing
rooms and limiting enrolments as they are unable to find qualified staff
Structural and cyclical economic factors are contributing to services’ difficulties
in finding and retaining staff. Relatively low pay and unattractive working
conditions offered by the sector as a major factor that impedes the attraction and
retention of staff.
ECTs working in ECEC settings and teachers working in schools often hold
equivalent degrees – but Australia-wide, median wages for ECTs working in
ECEC settings are about 20% lower than those of primary school teachers.

Source: Productivity Commission, 2023

Workforce challenges constrain the availability and quality of
ECEC
Despite being more likely to recommend their
employer, nearly half of early childhood education
and care professionals wouldn’t advocate pursuing a
career in the sector, according to new research from
industry super fund HESTA (State of the Sector
2021: Early Childhood Education and Care
Workforce Insights).
Among the biggest issues are:
• dissatisfaction with wages
• understaffing and the misuse of ‘under-the-roof’
ratios
• work-related stress
• a lack of opportunities for growth
• Injuries
 Activity: Reflect and make link to your Assessment 1

You have watched the videos and read the

reading materials. Now, reflect on the
following questions:
1. What other workplace issues have impact
on the quality of early childhood education
and care?
2. what strategies would you consider
addressing these issues from the perspective
of your teaching philosophy?
Note down your responses as these will
support you with your assessment task 1.
 ECEC educators on their love for their job.
 “What I love most about my job is the children. What an
It is time to enact the changes so that early amazing privilege it is to be invited into their world, and what

childhood educators have the resources, the an honour it is to help them grow and develop into the best
little people they can be.” Educator, QLD “
staffing levels, and the level of pay that
 “I love seeing the children’s faces when they are successful at
reflects their skill, so that they can do their job achieving something they’ve worked really hard on. I

to the best of their ability. absolutely love when I walk into a room and the children come
running to hug me because they are happy to see me. It lets
Despite the pressures they face at work,
me know that what I am doing for them is acknowledged and
research has consistently found that early accepted by the children. I enjoy working with the families to
childhood educators are passionate about and assist their children in their learning journeys.” Educator, VIC

committed to the role that they play in the  “Working with children it gives you a sense of joy and hope. I
like knowing that through my work I’m contributing to the
lives of children. Most early educators
wellbeing and education of future generation and making a
describe their ECEC work as a ‘career’ or difference in the lives of many children and that of our
‘profession’ rather than as a job. society.” Educator, SA