The Productivity Commission is currently undertaking a review into Australia’s Early Childhood Education and Care system.
Our current system is in need of repair. While there are thousands of amazing early childhood educators, who everyday share their passion and commitment with our children, they are overworked, underpaid, and families can’t find the care they need. Fixing childcare is also vital to improving gender equity with flow on benefits across the economy and society.
These are the five things we need to do.
- We need to rethink the way childcare is funded
Childcare in Australia is very expensive compared to other countries in the OECD. Previous increases to the childcare subsidy have failed to make childcare more affordable, as increasing fees negated the benefit of the subsidy. All efforts to reform subsidies and tax benefits are only tinkering at the edges, and past reforms have failed to deliver the promised results. Furthermore, those subsidies only benefit certain families, i.e., those who are actively seeking ECEC, usually out of necessity due to work responsibilities.
We need to think outside the box and consider alternative funding models, in order to make ECEC truly affordable for families.
2. We need to improve access to childcare places
On top of being expensive, families often also struggle to find childcare places that match their needs, and wait times for spots in childcare centres are increasing. What’s more, the availability of childcare places can be dependent on a family’s postcode with planning for new places not focused on matching areas of need. Regions with lower socioeconomic status have fewer childcare places per child. This review should consider how targeted action could lift childcare availability in the regions with the lowest level of access per child.
3. We need to address working conditions for educators
The ECEC sector is experiencing significant staffing shortages, driven largely by low wages and poor working conditions. This is because traditional gender norms surrounding caring, with childcare being seen as “women’s work”, leads to the undervaluation of paid caring roles and low award wages in the childcare sector. Australia’s complex funding model also poses a barrier to achieving better and fairer pay for ECEC workers.
4. We need more men to share the care
The lack of access to childcare remains a significant barrier to women’s workforce participation, and time out of the workforce due to caring responsibilities is a major contributor to the gender pay gap.
This review is an opportunity to consider how improvements to childcare can help lift women’s workforce participation and help close the gender pay gap. Further, there is an opportunity to promote gender equality, not just through boosting women’s workforce participation, but also through increasing men’s participation in caring. The Commission should consider how to break down barriers and address stigma, in order to encourage more men to take on more childcare.
5. We need to build a truly universal childcare system
The current mix of for-profit, not-for-profit and community care does not provide for a consistent and available system that ensures all families have access to high quality ECEC, further entrenching inequity. For ECEC to be truly accessible and inclusive the government should promote a philosophy where all Australian children can engage with thoughtful and enriching early childhood learning no matter their life circumstances and as a consequence of this, families are liberated to purse work and other endeavours.
Early childhood education and care is about so much more than simply enabling workforce participation for parents. It has important social and community benefits, and plays an important role in children’s education, health, and development. We have a once in a generation opportunity to reimagine ECEC. We hope the government takes this chance and makes childcare better for the benefit of the whole community.