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EXCERPTS
Most childcare workers are trained in a system that lacks rigour and accountability, with no monitoring of the quality of the courses offered.
At a time when the federal Government is pushing for a greater educational focus in childcare, early childhood expert Alison Elliott describes the industry as a shambles, with huge variations in the quality of care provided and the quality of carer.
Dr Elliott, research director of the early childhood program at the Australian Council for Educational Research and a former early childhood professor, said the links between qualified staff and a good start in life for children were well-established.
Yet only 10 per cent of childcare staff had degree-level qualifications and 30 per cent had no qualification or formal training.
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Dr Elliott said carers in family daycare were unlikely to have a formal childcare qualification and a three- or four-year-old child in a centre or preschool could be in a group with an untrained person, a worker with a vocational certificate or a teacher.
"Imagine if the same inequities existed for five-year-old children in the first year of school, some with qualified teachers and some without," Dr Elliott said. "Imagine in hospitals (where) some three- and four-year-old children have care from qualified medical staff, some don't.
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In a paper presented recently to a workshop on childcare policy, Dr Elliott said the vocational training was guided by a national approach, but there was no consistency in the way the courses were delivered.
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"Gradually, strong, specialist early childhood courses are being eroded," Dr Elliott said.
"If recent announcements about universal preschool education are to become a reality, early childhood teacher education capacity in universities will need rebuilding."
Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is pushing for a year of preschool for all children, and given the lack of stand-alone preschools in Australia, experts say most children will have that education in a childcare centre.
- reprinted from The Australian