The ACT Government released its new early childhood education and care workforce strategy today.
Valuing Educators, Values Children: A Workforce Strategy for the ACT Early Childhood Education and Care Profession (2023-25) aims to support the recruitment, retention, sustainability, and quality of the ACT early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce.
The Workforce Strategy focuses on sector support, capability building, career pathways, and professional recognition.
The Strategy will be delivered from 2023 to 2025.
The workforce strategy is a key deliverable under Set up for Success: An Early Childhood Strategy for the ACT. It aligns with the national workforce strategy, Shaping Our Future: A ten-year strategy to ensure a sustainable, high-quality children’s education and care workforce (2022–31).
A sector reference group will oversee the delivery of this strategy and ensure it meets the needs of the early childhood education and care workforce.
In the ACT, early childhood professionals work in for-profit and not-for-profit centre-based services, public and private preschools and early learning centres, Koori Preschools, family daycare services, play schools, and Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) also forms an integral part of the early learning profession in the ACT.
The ACT’s early childhood education and care workforce is predominantly young women, with a higher number of staff in the 20-24 age range than the national average, according to a 2021 census. In 2021, 73 per cent of staff had three or fewer years’ experience in the sector, and 32 per cent of staff had worked in the sector for less than a year. Nearly one third of the workforce were studying for a qualification while working. Between 2016 and 2021, there was a 1 per cent increase in tertiary qualified staff and a 7 per cent increase in diploma qualified staff in long day care – but Certificate III and IV qualified staff declined by 7 per cent. A higher proportion (58 per cent) of ACT ECEC staff were paid above the award rate than the national average (35 per cent).
“Early childhood educators play an invaluable role in fostering the development and growth of our littlest learners,” Yvette Berry, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development, said.
Francis Aparta, Assistant Director at Goodstart Early Learning Isaacs, has received an ACT Government scholarship to study Early Childhood Teaching.
“The scholarship has meant that I can finish my degree in early childhood teaching faster and the next stage of my career is more accessible,” Mr Aparta said. “I am really thankful for the opportunity and for the wonderful team I work with that supports me every day.”
The ACT Government invested more than $50 million in early childhood education in this year’s budget, which it claims is its “biggest ever investment” in the field. Preschool will be free for all three-year-olds from January 2024, providing eligible families with up to 300 hours of free preschool.
The ACT Children First Alliance (CFA) welcomed the workforce strategy.
