The Hon Maxine McKew MP
Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care
21 August, 2008
Speech
National Quality Standards Framework Consultation - Sydney
National Quality Standards Framework Consultation
Hilton Hotel, Sydney
Well, thank you very much indeed. And good afternoon everyone, it's a pleasure to see so many of you here, and it's particularly to have my state colleague here, Kevin Greene.
Can I make the obvious point everyone, that just how significant this is: I started the morning in Brisbane, and as well, my state counterpart Linda Nelson-Carr - Kevin's direct counterpart in Queensland - she was at the consultations with me there in Queensland, a huge sector in Queensland. In Victoria, a week and a half ago, my counterpart Maxine Morand was also at these consultations. The signal to you is this, that in fact the Commonwealth is working together with all of our state and territory partners, as they have never done on this agenda. It's because we know what you know, that we will not be able to move forward on the very ambitious agenda we have for - to care for children in the way we want to, unless we are all working collaborative.
And you're seeing this very overt demonstration of it today, but behind the scenes as well, you probably hear the Prime Minister talk a lot about the COAG process, you know, the Council of Australian Governance. Well, within that unwieldy beast, all of the hard work is being done between the Commonwealth and the States on better delivery of services: in health, in education and particularly in this all important area concerning the development of children.
So, it's by way of saying, again, Kevin I'm really delighted you're here today. It's great to be doing this together.
I think you will agree - your evidence here suggests this - that really is it's high time we talked about the quality framework. As I have been travelling around the country for these consultations, I do feel among dedicated early childhood professionals, that there's a real sense of momentum building. It's because we're putting the focus where it should be, and that's on children; on creating the sort of quality environments where children can feel safe, and where they can discover and learn and make mistakes.
One of my favourite writers is David Malouf, in fact he's got a lovely little book at the moment called On Experience, and part of what is in that lovely little book is him talking about his own childhood. And he says, young children have a secret machinery that gets to work inside them; it's a hidden industry of the senses and the spirit, he says, that helps navigate us through a complex world.
Well of course our best writers hold onto their sense of wonder, don't they, long after they reach adulthood. I think what we have to be confident about is that while children in care are very young, that they are looked after by the sort of individual who understands childish joy and imagination; a professional who can, if it were, literally see the world - put on a lens and see the world through the eyes of a two or a three year old.
Now much imaginative literature circles back to our earliest experiences; our triumphs, our sorrows, and how they shape us. And of course, memory is a powerful force, and it becomes much more powerful as we age. But my point is this: with more and more Australian children in formal care than ever before, ours is a very significant task. To ensure that when mum and dad are not around, that children have a right to a calm, consistent quality of care, so that they will be able to enter school as happy, secure and socially competent youngsters.
Now, I'm sure if you've been following the progress of the Rudd Labor government since its election last year, you'll know that we - we've really entered a new era when it comes to early childhood development. The state and territory governments have thrown their support behind a significant new partnership, and here in New South Wales, the state government is making - been making very good progress in this area for some time. The recent Budget committed $85 million over five years to a pre-school reform program, designed to improve affordability of pre-school in New South Wales.
When it comes to qualifications - I keep saying this to all my other state colleagues - New South Wales is the only jurisdiction with a requirement for centres with more than 29 places to have a trained teacher.
And just recently, the New South Wales government adopted the approach of naming and shaming failing services. From September this year, there'll be a publication about services that have been prosecuted for breaching licensing requirements.
Now, our collective goal of course - it's interesting that, you know, we've had to move on something like this. And I applaud that, because parents deserve to know that information.
But our collective goal in reforming the system, is to make this measure ultimately unnecessary. We want a system that identifies and supports struggling services early on, so that they don't fail. Now many of you are telling us that we could be doing a lot better for our infants, and children - and that's what we're discussing today: how to create better opportunities for Australian children.
We want to have this framework ideally agreed on by December of this year. Now I know that's very tight, but all the evidence suggests acting sooner rather than later. We're moving quickly because the critical importance of a child's early years are universally recognised. Now whether it's the work of James Heckman, Fraser Mustard, or the OECD research, Frank Oberklaid, Fiona Stanley - one message is clear. Good quality early childhood experiences ease the transition to formal schooling, and have a direct affect on longer term education, employment and health outcomes.
We also know that for disadvantaged children in particular they have most to gain from the benefits of early intervention.
Now of course I'm reasonably new to this portfolio, unlike all of the expertise in this room. But I guess there's one advantage, I bring a fresh set of eyes and in the past eight months or so I've learned a good deal about the system, the good, the bad, in some cases, the downright shocking. But when I look overall at the state of services, I make this conclusion. I completely reject the notion that has been put by some that the care of children is in some kind of crisis. I don't think that's right.
There are about 1.1 million children in approved care. More women than ever, you may have noticed, are having babies. The fertility rate is up to 1.9. More women are returning to work. The latest figures I think it's nearly 60 per cent return to work by the time their children are 18 months of age. Now these figures suggest to me that in fact parents of young children have a good deal of confidence in what they're doing and certainly in Australia's formal childcare system.
But I think all the more reason to act now at a time when I think we can increase that confidence. I think now is the time to really take stock and lift the status of the entire sector. Because our current system does have big gaps.
I'll just give you a brief outline of how it looks across the country, the current licensing accreditation. At the national level, of course, we have the Commonwealth Government funding the National Childcare Accreditation Council. There are different accreditation schemes for different types of services and only services that are approved for the purposes of attracting the childcare benefit are subject to the accreditation process.
Meanwhile the states and territories have responsibility for licensing and regulating childcare services and preschools. And those responsibilities go to rations, to qualifications and to the physical and safety requirements. Now that's a convoluted system. It means there are overlaps, gaps, inconsistencies between the two systems and I'll just give you some examples. Child to staff ratios for the nought to twos, one to four in some states, one to five in others. In older age groups, variations between the states are even greater. In New South Wales the staff to child ratio for two to three year olds is one to eight, in Queensland one to six, in South Australia, one to ten.
When it comes to qualifications there is no nationally consistent minimum qualification for early childcare workers. Only seven per cent of early childcare workers in long day care hold a bachelor degree or higher qualification. And only 39 per cent of the early childhood workforce - sorry, 39 per cent of the early childhood workforce in long day care have no formal childcare qualifications.
Now I ask you to consider this and to consider the contrast. Children when they start school know absolutely and their parents certainly know that young children in primary years will be trained by a registered trained teacher. They will know with absolute certainty that the principal of that school will encourage ongoing professional development. yet how bizarre it is - is it that for a child only a few years younger in an early learning environment there are no requirements for qualifications and yet we know what the Frank Oberklaids and the Fiona Stanleys have been telling us for years, that children are learning more in those early learning years than in any other comparable period. It is an extraordinary anomaly.
In the absence of a national framework, children across Australia are having different quality experiences depending in part on a particular state's licensing requirements. The variability is unfair on children, unfair on service providers and fails to deliver what children and their families deserve, a consistent standard of high quality care and learning.
Now if you look at the accreditation process further, there are real gaps that can allow children to be in non-compliant centres for considerable periods of time.
For example, it can take a new service two years on average to gain accreditation from the time a centre first opens its doors for business. If that centre fails accreditation the first time around it can be another year before it's accredited. That's three years from the time of starting operations.
There's another significant oversight. Parents are not informed when the system identifies problems with a service. Under current arrangements parents may not find out about problems until they receive a letter from my Department advising them that the service's CCB is about to be withdrawn and they'll no longer be entitled to that benefit. That's a pretty big shock for parents.
In the meantime we have children attending centres that have not met basic quality accreditation requirements.
Now for years the previous government was, I think it's reasonable to say, a passive investor in the childcare market. It handed money to parents and centres and demanded too little in return. And it seems that our current system does accommodate some poor quality providers. This government is not satisfied with that approach and nor are the states and territories. So the Commonwealth is repositioning itself as a very active player.
This financial year we will spend $3.2 billion on childcare services, on subsidies and on new initiatives on behalf of taxpayers and parents. We want to see value for that money. We are raising the bar. We're raising the bar and we want to ensure that our investment will benefit those who use the system, day in, day out.
Now before we start to feel overwhelmed by the task and I know it - given what I've just said, perhaps it is, let me say as well that I think this is a time of great opportunity and I'm hearing that from many of you. The chance to redesign a flawed system doesn't present itself often, so I think we should grab it with both hands. And we should be encouraged by the fact that despite some of my earlier observations, we're not starting from a blank slate. There are dedicated and committed people working in the sector, running centres that are sterling examples of what we should be aiming for across the board. They are out there, they're doing it and believe me, when a centre gets it right, children are the winners.
I see outstanding innovative centres across the country. I've got, you know, some splendid ones in my own electorate and I know many of the owners and providers are in this room today and it's great to see you here. If I single people out, others will be offended. So I'll try not to do that today.
But look, I'll tell you what they have in common. The great centres that I see all push way beyond what the state regulations require. They really take that extra step. Great centres all have great leaders, leaders who understand the importance of the early years and the value of ongoing professional training. And you know what, these great leaders don't make false distinctions. They don't say, oh you can only have a quality preschool program in sessional preschool. They know that's ridiculous.
I mean Frank Oberklaid said on Life Matters yesterday, he said there's this idea that learning is something that goes on for, you know, ten hours in a stand alone preschool over two days a week but on Monday and Tuesday, when that same child might be in long day care or grandma's in the mix, providing another bit of care, that somehow learning's not going on. He said that's absurd. Learning goes on all of the time.
All of these good centres, the quality centres also provide, it's an interesting point to make, high quality and affordable programs. Quality and affordability, I've found, go hand in hand. Centres respond to the needs of their communities and deliver the quality programs that meet the needs of children.
Of course the big question is how do we get more of them? How do we get there? What will a new set of national standards for everybody look like? Well this is where your work begins. It's your expertise, your ideas and your input that's going to be very valuable as part of this consultation process.
But we do have a significant starting point. I hope you've had a look through the document in advance. As you'll see, we know the framework will have some key elements, rigorous quality standards, a ratings system and streamlined or integrated licensing and accreditation.
In addition, we want the standards to be supplemented by an early years learning framework. Now oddly Australia is one of the few countries without any kind of a national early childhood curriculum. Well I think we need one. The early learning framework will be a guide to early childcare educators as they develop programs.
So we want the quality framework to deliver more transparency and accountability around funding, improved information, most importantly, improved information for parents, a reduced administrative burden for operators and continuous improvement in the quality of services.
Now here are just some suggestions to prompt your own thinking about what we need if we're serious about doing this. There's no dispute among the experts about what drives quality. They tell us the same thing. It's the nature of the social interaction between a child and its carer, that's the key driver. Now of course the very best interaction is likely to be between a child and its parent. However, in the modern economy, many parents work, and in their absence, the optimum environment requires high staff to child ratios, a well qualified work force, and manageable group size.
Now, these three things are seen as the iron triangle of quality service delivery.
As you know, there's growing recognition of the critical role of highly qualified professionals in the early childhood education sector. And there's a marvellous description by Professor Ron Lally of just what an early ed professional is.
He says neither babysitter nor trainer, but rather, a loving facilitator of emotional cognitive language, physical and social competence.
That's nice, isn't it.
A loving facilitator.
In 2006, The Australia Institute released a paper by Emma Rush. Some of you would be familiar with this. It's called Childcare Quality in Australia.
And Rush conducted a national survey of long daycare staff which asked them about aspects of care. And again what came up - high staff to child ratios were seen as being at the core of the ability to provide quality care. Childcare workers in long daycare centres were telling us of their concerns about ratios at least two to three years ago. It's also instructive to look at the work of associate professor Margaret Sims from Edith Cowan University. I met her up - met up with her in Perth about a week and a half ago. Her research has studied stress levels in childcare centres, and where children and employees feel rushed and pressured, higher cortesole(*) levels are recorded.
We know, of course, that continued stress for children means they divert all their energies into dealing with it. And that of course inhibits their capacity to learn, to develop. Secure, calm children on the other hand are more likely to be empathetic, and in a position to be able to regulate their emotions. What you want when children are starting school.
So let's be clear. Effective staff child ratios have to be central to reform.
The new standards have to reflect internationally recognised best practice. I think also there has to be alignment on qualifications. Now, I know there is some concern in the sector around our emphasis on four-year trained teachers. However, we do believe that the four-year trained teacher is a pre-requisite to achieving our policy goals. It's not because of the qualification, per se, but because again, studies have shown us that it's that staff members ability to create, I guess, a better pedagogic environment that makes the difference.
So we're looking for people - indeed, we're actively encouraging the training of educators - who will be leaders in learning and development. Pam Cahir from Early Childhood Australia has also got a nice way of capturing it. She says we need educators in centres who can explain to parents what they do. That is, you know, explain the connection between the day to day activities that a carer teacher is working on with a child, and what that means, and how that actually improves learning. And for those without four year qualifications, but with a passion for children and their welfare, we want to work with their employers, with training institutions, to ensure they have every opportunity to improve their skills if that's what they choose to do.
But let's be very clear.
We know we will not achieve our ambitions in this sector unless we dramatically increase the professional standing and the qualifications of those who work with young children. Many of you talk about the poor status that the sector has. I am convinced that the way to raise that status is to professionalise.
Early childhood has to be seen in exactly the same way and treated with the respect and the professionalism as every other sphere of education.
As part of the national quality standards, we're also developing a quality rating system. That's to drive continuous improvement and again to provide information to parents. You'll know that the Commonwealth has talked about an A to E rating system. But in fact it may be that the public consultations show that something else is preferred. And I'll put up an alternative. One other way to go would be to consider a base level qualification, a provisional licence. Any new operator coming into the system does not get a full licence. They actually get a provisional licence.
And as part of that, if you like, conditionality, they would have to agree to a number of things. They would have to take the professional development help from the accreditation body at the beginning. They would have to be able to demonstrate an ability to hire and train and retain staff. So you might say that is your, you know, new entrants would be on their P plates - a provisional base rating.
In the middle, you'd have a standard rating. You might want to have then a high standard within that as well. At the very top, you would have centres of excellence - your lighthouse centres, if you like.
And they would be exceptional institutions pushing beyond what the regulations require. So that's a different way to look at a rating system which I think is very important. But I am open to other suggestions beyond what we have put out there in the literature, that A to E.
So I'll be very interested to hear what you come back with on that.
Whatever model of system we implement, of course it matters that it continues to deliver quality improvement.
Now the changes I've mentioned also will necessitate streamlining the current licensing and accreditation process. We don't know the form that will take. But we anticipate the most effective way to drive quality will be through a single national administering agency with significant state input.
Now, when you're discussing the characteristics of a new regulatory system today, consider a couple of questions. Firstly, is there a need for, say, a new agency to be a strong and effective and, I'd say, loud advocate for the sector, to have a continuous debate about quality.
And secondly, what kind of professional support services should be available from the time a centre opens its doors for business? Now, once we've decided on this model, appropriate governance mechanisms will need to be developed. And I also want to say on the topic of the national body, I want to say a big thank you.
She's not here today. But she was at the Melbourne consultations. A huge thank you to June McLachlan, who's the chair of the NCAC. Many of you will be very very familiar with June.
From the beginning of this year, knowing that the incoming Government had this, you know, pretty big agenda for change, I could have met with a good deal of defensiveness. Nothing could be further from the truth. June and Denise Taylor and everyone at the NCAC have been active players in this.
They know exactly what the flaws are in the system. And they've been tremendously helpful in saying there is a better way to go. So I'm very very grateful to that, because I know being a product of a big institution, change is not always easy.
So we also know - and I say this directly to those service operators here - that there is a significant cost to the delivery of quality care. But as I've mentioned earlier, the Commonwealth has already demonstrated its intention to provide significant additional funds to support these initiatives, and state and territory governments have indicated their in-principle support as well.
There's just one measure among many that I could mention. Over the next four years, we are committed to $126 million just on work force initiatives alone. And I'll mention two. About half of that money is so that as of next year, TAFE fees are abolished for those who do the diploma, or the associate diploma. So I hope everyone in this room is aware of that. TAFE fees from next year are abolished. And that is a direct subsidy to employers.
So I urge all of you who are running centres, please encourage your staff to take those places and improve the qualifications. The - we are also from next year providing an extra 500 places at the universities for the universities, for early childhood teachers. And there's an overall commitment, over the next three years, to 1500 places. So you can see that the Commonwealth is stepping up to the plate there.
We're putting our money where our mouth is in terms of significant help for the up-skilling of the work force.
Now, you've given me very generous time to explain just some of the background to this. So let me wish you well in your deliberations. I meet with - there are many familiar faces in this room, and I meet with you in forums other than this either in my Sydney office, or at universities, or in Canberra.
It has been a pleasure to work with you to this point. And let's hope we can work together on what I think is really a great set of reforms that will benefit Australia's children. Thank you very much.
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