Yesterday, an email floated into my inbox. It was from my children’s daycare centre, and read:
“Recently, the Australian Government introduced the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Worker Retention Payment Program as a way to support the retention of educators in the early childhood sector. While this program provides funding to services for increasing staff wages, it comes with strict requirements and limited flexibility that may not suit all services. After careful review, we have determined that the program is not the right fit for our centre at this time”.
The email went on to note that the centre had opted to immediately fund a 10 per cent pay increase on award wage for all educators but that to help cover some of the additional operating costs and ensure the long-term sustainability of their service they would be implementing a fee increase of 4.4 per cent effective January 2025.
This is the third fee increase since my first child started attending in 2022 and my centre is nowhere near as voracious as others. The email (which I’m sure thousands of parents around the country have received in recent days) ultimately highlights a major flaw with the Albanese government’s legislation– no matter how well intentioned.
To recap, the government’s policy was to fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers over the next two years. The wage increase would be introduced in two phases, with a 10 per cent increase in December 2024 and a further five per cent in December 2025.
As a deterrent to excess fees being passed onto parents, the government outlined that for centres to receive funding for staff, they must not increase their fees by more than 4.4 per cent over the next 12 months and that funds be directly passed onto educators. But for most privately run centres, I would hazard a guess, this just isn’t worth it.
In Australia, most childcare centres are privately run businesses. And like most businesses in high demand, they capitalise by driving their fees up. I don’t begrudge them this. As a business owner myself, I wholly understand.
The centre my kids attend is amazing; the educators are incredible and the resources are second to none. Every day I drop my two-year-old and four-year-old there with ease, knowing that they’re in a place that is safe, happy and where they’ll learn at a rapid rate.
I have often written about my deep appreciation for early childhood educators, and the unconditional commitment they make to children who aren’t their own. I have known so many educators to go above and beyond each and every day to make sure the kids in their orbit are so loved and looked out for. The 15 percent pay rise legislated by this government is high time, but I will always argue that what educators deserve exceeds this significantly.
I am grateful that the centre my kids attend isn’t as greedy as others. They have committed to paying their staff more, and have only increased their fees so far to 4.4 per cent deemed reasonable by the government’s framework. But they will be entitled to raise it another 4.4 per cent in another six months if they choose to, and who could blame them?
Few parents in this small, regional NSW town will take their kids out of care if they can help it. There is no alternative. There are two centres in the whole vicinity and both are at saturation point. We need them.
We can hate on the centres all we want, but they’re just capitalising on the system. Nothing will change, no amount of tinkering will make a difference, until we move to a wholly universal system of early education.
I suspect this is something the government will come to realise, if not already, then very soon.