FACT SHEET 5
Government support: Early childhood education and care
Early childhood education and care services and children’s wellbeing
- Nearly all children that HREOC spoke to during its consultations said they wanted to spend more time with their parents. Parents also wanted more time with their children.
- There is clear evidence that while families are the most important influence in children’s lives, good quality children’s programs do not just enhance children’s wellbeing by increasing their parents’ labour market attachment and socio-economic status, they also enhance children’s development, mediate against risk, help with the development of peer relationships and provide a site for building parental supports and networks.
- The provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a central concern of Australian families and was repeatedly highlighted in almost every consultation HREOC conducted, especially the availability, affordability and flexibility of child care services.
Government provision of early childhood education and care services
- Australian, state, territory and local governments all have roles in the funding and administration of ECEC, with services delivered by the private, public and community sectors within a market environment. While this sharing of responsibility may allow services to be more locally focused, it has resulted in a challenging environment for the development of an integrated ECEC system.
- A recent study by the OECD highlights that Australian Government expenditure on ECEC is among the lowest in the OECD.
- National statistics on child care recently released by the ABS show that 46 per cent of Australian children aged 0-12 years attend child care with 21 per cent using formal child care and 33 per cent using informal care, either alone or in combination.
- In the last decade in particular, the shift from informal to formal care has been marked. While the proportion of all children receiving some type of child care has not changed significantly, the number of children in formal care has grown. The number of 0-11 year olds in formal child care (including in combination with informal child care) has increased from 14 per cent (446,800) in 1996 to 23 per cent (704,400) in 2005.
- It is important that choices are available for families relying on both formal and informal care services. The more types of care available the more likely that families will find care that they regard as suitable for their children.
How do we make child care services more family-friendly?
- In order to make children’s services more useful for and supportive of families trying to balance their paid work with care responsibilities, the central concerns must be availability and affordability of services and access for all families.
- ABS statistics demonstrate a significant level of unmet need in relation to all forms of formal child care. The recently released ABS Child Care Survey found that parents required additional formal care for almost 190 000 children nationally.
- Statistics on unmet demand for child care also suggest that there are many mothers who are not participating in the paid workforce at all as a result of being unable to secure child care. This is particularly so for some groups of mothers including sole parents, families on low incomes, parents with disability and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
- Undersupply of child care is a particular concern in rural and remote parts of Australia and areas dominated by low income families where services are generally less profitable and sustainable.
- The wages paid to child care workers is also one of the critical problems in limiting any increase in the availability of child care.
- The cost of child care was a problem repeatedly stressed to HREOC during the consultations.
- The lack of flexibility in child care for long hours or shift workers has also been identified as a significant issue by a range of groups and individuals.
- Other changes that would assist working parents include better integration of school hours and standard working hours, and holiday periods.
- It is generally accepted that children with physical, intellectual and learning disabilities should be mainstreamed into early care and education services which can be encouraged by providing priority of access and increasing resources to allow additional staff support for children with disability.
- The paper recommends that the Australian Government, with the cooperation of the states and territories, institute a comprehensive national review of ECEC services, grounded in a commitment to children’s wellbeing.
Integration of child care and early education
- In June 2005, 257 100 Australian children aged zero to five years attended preschools, the majority (76 per cent) of whom were four years old.
- There is clear evidence supporting the short and long term benefits of high quality preschool programs for children, particularly in respect of educational progress, labour market outcomes, welfare dependency and decreases in anti-social behaviour.
- The availability of preschool education remains patchy across Australia, both from a geographic perspective and in terms of the socio-economic circumstances of families who are able to access preschool services. As a result, concerns continue about the equity of current arrangements for preschool education.
- The paper recommends that the Australian Government with the cooperation of the States and Territories develop a framework for a national preschool year of education for all four year old children in Australia as a matter of urgency.
The fact sheet is also available for download in 
Word and 
PDF formats.
