Early Childhood Australia CEO, Pam Cahir, was invited to address the Southern Cross University Symposium 'What matters in early childhood? A conversation with leading national and international experts'.

The symposium was held on 29 October at the University's Centre for Children and Young People in Lismore, NSW.

Pam's speaking notes are below.

Acknowledgement of country

To begin, I wish to acknowledge the Bundjalung people: the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which this meeting is taking place. I wish to pay respect to and acknowledge elders past and present, and Aboriginal people who are here today.

In so doing I acknowledge Early Childhood Australia's and my own personal obligation to work towards the achievement of social justice, human rights and reconciliation with and for Australia's Indigenous peoples.

Early Childhood Australia does this at meetings it attends as recognition that each and every one of us is a beneficiary of the dispossession of Indigenous people that began in 1788.

Today too I wish to recognise the importance of protecting all children, including young Indigenous children, from abuse.

I hope that the current intervention in the NT to protect little children in the here and now is situated in a long-term strategy which:

• supports the human rights of Aboriginal Australians, and
• works toward solutions for future generations of Indigenous children which are dignified and engender a sense of hope and purpose and which do not further disempower Indigenous Australians.

HREOC, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, states that:

'Respect for human rights is fundamental for reconciliation. It must be applied consistently—whether in showing no tolerance for abuse and violence in communities, or in engaging in a respectful manner with communities in addressing the existing inequalities faced by Indigenous people.' (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner responds to Prime Minister's commitment to 'new reconciliation)

Honoured guests, early childhood practitioners and others,

I have been asked to talk to you about:

What we know of the current political and pedagogical context of early childhood education and care, and what this means for those working at the front line.

There are a complex set of interrelated factors that make up the current political and pedagogical context of early education and care.

What I am going to do today is work my way through each of these and build a picture of the reality in which early education and care is situated.

In recent times I have made a number of speeches around aspects of this topic to different audiences. These have included talking about:

• the need for a national vision and long-term strategy for early childhood in this country
• whether a systems approach to the delivery of children's services has anything to offer
• the importance of early childhood And, most recently:
• I have been talking about respect and recognition for early childhood practitioners.

Each of these, and the audiences to whom I have been speaking, has caused me to reflect differently on what is happening in early childhood.

As a result, what I will say today is very much a work in progress—thinking out loud so to speak—a conversation between myself and my other self.

So what is the current political and pedagogical context in which early childhood services, including the early years of school, operate?

For simplicity I will refer to early childhood services throughout my address but, in general, my comments can be taken to include the early years of school.

I think most of us would need no persuading that the early years provide the foundation for all that follows. For most of us this has long been conventional wisdom.

Before I go on however I want to be clear about why Early Childhood Australia thinks children are fundamentally important.

I want to do this because the new arguments, which I will come to, can in a subtle way redefine children and their place in society.

We need to remember always that children are citizens.

As citizens, children have a value as human beings in the here and now, not simply for what they might become.

As citizens, they have an entitlement, independent of their parent's capacity to pay and shared by all other citizens, to the resources (that is policies, programs and funds) necessary to ensure:

• their wellbeing in the here-and-now experience of childhood
• their increasing capacity to participate as full and responsible citizens in the social, economic and political life of the society
• that they can and will exercise their responsibility as adults for future generations of children.

Society has responsibility for the ongoing wellbeing and futures of all of its citizens, including children.

It also has an obligation to equip current generations of children and young people to exercise the same responsibility for future generations of children.

That is, commitment to children is a continuing obligation of a civil society to its youngest citizens.

In recent times, economists and neuroscientists have added their weight to justifications for investment in early childhood with irrefutable and convincing arguments for the importance of early childhood and high-quality early childhood services. These arguments have been much more persuasive with governments and policy-makers.

What is that evidence?

The research by neuroscientists has provided the evidence that early childhood matters.

This 'brain research', as it is often referred to, tells us:

• It is not our genes alone that make us what we are.
• The brain develops over time.
• The vast majority of brain connections are built in the first three years.
• That experience sculpts those connections as they are used and eliminates those that are not.
• That early experiences are powerful because they are used by the young child to continue the building process.
• And that the human brain is a social brain. Even what we think of as cognitive and physical skills are learned more effectively in the context of relationships. And the research also tells us that:
• Earlier is better than later. That is it is best to learn well early as remediation is harder, less successful and more costly. (Levitt, 2007)
• The research of neuroscientists tells us too that the absence of positive and protective relationships for the children (that is, toxic stress) can affect brain architecture. (Galinsky, 2006)

The importance of this for those in the frontline of early education and care is that providing the right experiences early and reducing those that are detrimental will be the most successful and least costly in promoting brain development and early childhood development.

One of the things that stands out for me in all of this however is, as Ross Thomson (2001) says, 'That the irreducible core of early experience is relationships.'

High-quality learning experiences go hand in hand with positive relationships in early childhood. This is not a personal view; it is what the research says.

The other arguments that have focused the attention of policy-makers and politicians on early childhood are those being made by economists.

Economic evidence demonstrates that early childhood matters.

Economists are responding to the evidence which shows that young children who have high-quality—and I emphasise, high-quality—early learning and care experiences are:

• more likely to have a successful school experience, be healthy and be employed
• less likely to be engaged with the social security or criminal justice systems. And are likely to be
• more productive workers.

Heckman, an economist who is a Nobel laureate, says:

'Learning and motivation are dynamic, cumulative processes. Skill begets skill; learning begets learning. Early disadvantage, if left untouched, leads to academic and social difficulties later in life. Early advantages accumulate, just as early disadvantages do.'

In a nutshell, economists are arguing that:

Quality early childhood education is essential for a productive 21st-century workforce.

They are arguing that:

Investing in quality early childhood education grows the economy into the future and avoids the equity–efficiency trade-off that plagues society. (Early childhood education for all: A wise investment (PDF))

In the words of an economic journalist:

It (quality early childhood education) is a rare public policy initiative that promotes fairness and social justice and, at the same time, promotes productivity in the economy. (Heckman: Investing in disadvantaged children is fair and efficient

What this means is that investment in quality early childhood services makes a direct contribution to productivity and therefore the economy.

It does this:

• in the short term—through increased participation by women in the workforce
• in the long-term—because future workers will be, as I said previously, more highly educated, less involved with the criminal justice and welfare systems and therefore more productive.

All this will be essential as the population ages.

These arguments, although they see children and childhood in an instrumentalist way, give us greater leverage than we have had previously in arguing for change and importantly for increased investment in early childhood.

It is clear that what is good for children is good for the economy—well, what a relief!

We need to be clear though that both the neuroscientists and economists are talking about high-quality early childhood programs.

Given this, it is important to have a look at what is known about high-quality early childhood programs.

There are two sets of findings about high-quality early childhood programs that it is important to consider (Galinsky, 2005):

The first relate to what can be called the structural features of quality.

Known as the iron triangle, these include child–staff ratios, group size, and well-qualified and remunerated staff with specialist early childhood qualifications and high-level early childhood leadership—the basics, so to speak.

The research is unequivocal that:

Early childhood leadership matters.

By 'leadership' I mean specialist early childhood teachers with four-year degrees.

Early childhood pedagogical leadership is an essential component of quality childhood programs and services.

Why should we be surprised? We don't question this for schools. The research has been clear for some time that educational leadership from the principal of school underwrites a quality school.

Early childhood pedagogical leadership is what sets a service apart in terms of outcomes for children. The evidence is in on this.

You cannot provide clear and informed leadership in any environment if you do not understand what needs to be done and why. Leadership is not about a pat on the back and saying 'well done—you're doing well'.

Leadership here means clarity of focus, a deep understanding about what is being done, a capacity to deliver professional leadership and provide intentional and informed support to practitioners across an organisation.

Other early childhood qualifications such as diplomas etc. matter in child care, but the leadership has to have a deep understanding about what matters for children whether they are in the early years of school, preschools/kindergartens or child care.

Qualifications matter

As I said previously, staff with responsibility for children should have early childhood qualifications. In fact, the more staff in a service who have early childhood qualifications the better.

Research shows that there are better social and cognitive outcomes when children's care and education is in the hands of early childhood education specialists.

Teaching is a planned, intentional and interactive process in which you need to know what you are doing.

Child–staff ratios and group size matter

The evidence is clear here too. Lower child–staff ratios and smaller group-sizes enable the sensitive, thoughtful and responsive interactions which are essential to the provision of high-quality care and good outcomes for children, and for the development of the relationships with children that I referred to earlier.

For example: for babies, the optimum is 1 adult to 3 babies in a total group-size of 6.

In Australia, the majority of regulations require only 1 adult to 5 babies—I recently heard of a room in a long day care centre where there are 24 babies under 12 months.

Think about it!

You cannot do what is right for infants in this situation.

The ratio in Australia for toddlers aged from 12-months to three-years is around 1:10.

This is almost worse, and is not OK.

Staff stability and continuity matter

Staff stability and continuity underwrite the development of the relationships and enable the quality interactions which are so significant in children's learning and development. The evidence is unequivocal about this as well.

Wages, conditions and career prospects matter

It is increasingly clear that wages and conditions (and the existence of a career structure) are key factors in people's decision to work in children's services/early childhood and continue to stay there.

What this means is that, unless we pay qualified people appropriately, we will not have the staff stability essential to the sustained relationships and intentional interactions with children which are at heart of their development.

Unless we pay people appropriately we will continue to have a very unstable workforce in children's services. Less so in schools and preschools, where teachers are paid appropriately.

Unless we get these basics right, we cannot deliver quality early childhood programs.

This is the currently the prerogative of state governments through regulations.

What we need is evidenced-based regulations and standards.

But success depends on more than the basics

In a really interesting retrospective analysis of a number of high-quality early childhood programs, Ellen Galinsky also identified a set of principles which are given effect in high-quality programs where the basics are in place.

She looked behind the basics to what was happening in the programs.

Her findings are best expressed as a set of principles which have much more to do with ways of thinking about and interacting with children, their families, and with colleagues.

The principles she identified were:

• There was clarity of focus in each of these programs. The leaders of these programs were very intentional about what they wanted their programs to accomplish and built support among participants and in the larger community for accomplishing these goals.
• The programs focused on the whole child—the child's intellectual, social, emotional and physical growth and wellbeing.
• The relationship between the teacher and the child was seen as central to the child's learning.
• The children in these programs were viewed as active and experiential learners.
• There was a mixture between responsive teaching that extended and elaborated on what the children were already learning and direct teaching, but the direct teaching was also designed to be engaging and to extend children's learning. The curriculum was not set in stone, but was rather a framework for learning.
• Although the teachers were better educated, better trained, and better paid than the average early childhood teacher, there was also a strong focus on their ongoing learning.

The model of adult learning was not one of pouring information into 'an empty vessel', but one of providing time and resources for the teachers to reflect on what the children were learning and on their own teaching to find ways to improve their teaching practice.

The basics—including specialist qualifications for all staff and early leadership from people with four-year education degrees, appropriate ratios and group sizes—are crucial, because they provide the context within which the principles outlined above can be given expression.

Given we know all this, why is it that we still struggle for appropriate levels of investment in early childhood?

Gains have been made, but mostly these have been focused on affordability—and, in this election, a beginning recognition of the need for specialist early childhood teachers in some programs. However there is little evidence of a commitment on wages, child–staff ratios, group size etc.

There is little evidence of the vision and long-term planning that is needed to build a quality early childhood education and care system.

So why is this?

I want to tackle this by talking about what I see to be one of the fundamental challenges that we face—a challenge that is a very significant part of the political and pedagogical context which faces people who work on the front line of early education and care.

This challenge is less talked about now, but has had more focus in the recent past. What I am talking about is about achieving recognition and respect for early childhood professionals. In previous times we used to talk about the status and standing of the early childhood profession.

An examination of why we struggle with this might give some leverage on the reasons why we are yet to achieve the level of investment in early childhood education and care that is needed.

What do we mean when we ask for recognition and respect for early childhood professionals?

• What concepts, values are wrapped up in the words recognition and respect?
• What other professions have recognition and respect? And:
• Whose recognition and respect are we asking for?
• Why do we want/need recognition and respect? And:
• How will we know when we have it?

We use the words 'recognition' and 'respect' in a number of different ways.

What we are talking about here is a notion of recognition and respect as something which certain categories of professions/workers earn or have given to them. That is, they and the work they do are valued.

For instance, when we say we respect the medical profession this is code for saying that they have earned our respect because they/the work they do meets certain conditions.

There was a survey done by the BBC recently asking people to list the occupations they respected most.

What was listed?

• Doctors.
• Nurses.
• Teachers.
• Firemen—now firefighters in a better world.
• Paramedics.
• Members of army, navy and the air force.
• Ambulance drivers.
• Scientists.
• Professors.

I must say I was a bit surprised.

I asked myself what are the common things about each of these quite disparate professions that sit behind their status as a respected/trusted profession?

Here is the list of characteristics I came up with:

1. The work done by each of these groups is recognised by the society as vital and has to be done well or the consequences could be dire.

   I began saying it simply had to be important, but that was not quite right. Constructing new knowledge to cope with global warming etc., putting out fires are pretty vital; defending the country is vital; caring for sick people is vital—the consequences of not doing a quality job are dire and tangible.

   Fixing the plumbing is important, but not vital in quite the same sense I think.

   As well as this, each of the professions/workers I described in my list:

2. Does work which is recognised and described as complex and specialised. It requires specialised training, knowledge and understandings. It doesn't just come naturally. Taking out an appendix is not quite the same as eating—at least not for me.
3. There is also no debate in these professions about the importance of qualifications—that is, high-level qualifications in the specialist field are crucial to doing the job at all, let alone well.
4. The work of doctors, firefighters, paramedics, nurses etc. has a demonstrable/immediate effect. You can see the outcome of their intervention.

   There is an undeniable cause and effect so to speak. If you break an arm, the doctor will fix it; if your house catches fire the firefighter will put it out; the paramedics deal with the emergency etc.

5. The work they do is well paid—I am not sure if this applies to all of these people but what is absolutely certain is that they generally earn more than people working in child care.
6. They are a select group—not everyone can be a doctor, professor or scientist etc.

How does the work of early childhood professionals rate against each of these criteria?

Is the work of the early childhood professional important? And by this I mean is it vital/crucial in the same way as people think the work of a doctors or firefighters etc.

Would the consequences of not doing that work well be dire for children and the society?

Does the quality of children's early experience matter?

I think my earlier comments make it clear that early childhood does matter and that the work of the early childhood specialist teacher and others is vital to the society now and into the future.

So, against my first criteria, which was:

The work done by a recognised and respected profession is recognised by the society as vital and has to be done well or the consequences could be dire.

I think it is clear that the early childhood profession is deserving of recognition and respect.

What of the other criteria:

• Is the work of the early childhood professional recognised and described as complex and specialised?
• Does it require specialised knowledge and understandings if it is to be done well?

Again, on the basis of my previous comments about the research which shows that early childhood pedagogical leadership—that is, people with four-year early childhood teaching degrees—is an essential component of a quality children's service and the early years of school, it is clear that specialist early childhood qualifications are crucial to doing the job well.

I should note here too that there are personal qualities, in addition to qualifications, that are necessary to work well with young children, and this is particularly the case with infants.

So, in terms of my criteria for respect and recognition...

• That the work of the early childhood professional recognised and described as complex and specialised.
• And that it requires specialised knowledge and understandings—qualifications—if it is to be done well.

...the work of the early childhood professional is deserving of respect and recognition.

However against the third criteria the picture is not quite so clear. My third criteria was that:

There is no debate within these professions, or among others that matter, that specialist qualifications are essential.

The others that matter, to whom I refer, might be employers including state education departments or owners of childcare services, parents using services or sending their child to school and the people working in the services.

Is there debate among these people that early childhood specialist qualifications are essential?

Well, there is some evidence, apparent in the policies that have been announced in this election campaign, that some politicians believe specialist early childhood qualifications are necessary for the delivery of a high-quality programs.

The commitment to an early childhood workforce strategy which will provide for extra places in early childhood degrees in universities, some HECS-fee relief for people who commit to teach in services in rural Australia, and the elimination of TAFE fees for early childhood Diploma students is a good thing.

However I want to assert that there is no universal agreement among those who work with young children—particularly in child care—that early childhood qualifications and specialist knowledge is necessary to deliver a quality program. I also want to assert that, partly, because of this, there is not universal agreement among the parents of children in these services that early childhood specialist qualifications are essential.

In particular, I want to assert that there is no real agreement that early childhood pedagogical leadership—in the form of specialist early childhood teachers—is necessary to deliver a high-quality program for children.

The reason I say this is because many of those working in our services are not qualified or are under-qualified; and the majority of our childcare services do not employ early childhood teachers at all, let alone in leadership positions. Certainly the regulations do not require this in any state other than NSW.

The result is that there are few childcare services across this country where the leadership role is held by an early childhood teacher.

And in 60 per cent of services in NSW, the only state to regulate for teachers in long day care centres, unqualified or poorly qualified people have been deemed to be teachers.

Have you ever heard of a nurse being deemed a doctor?

Would patients put up with this?

Would they be concerned about the outcomes of the doctor's intervention? I think so.

Would there be an uproar? I think so.

The issue for early childhood is that, when we ask people working in services to acknowledge that qualifications are necessary, we are asking people working with young children everyday—people who are committed to their work—to acknowledge that although they are doing the best that they can, they cannot do the best for children.

This is a hard thing to acknowledge.

But ...

While we are saying the job is being done well without qualifications or lower qualifications (and this applies to the other basics: high staff–child ratios etc.), we are essentially saying we do not need any further investment to deliver quality.

Each day, parents of children using services are told by staff that the service their child is using is a quality service; that because it is accredited, as if by some magic, this obviates everything research tells us is necessary—that is, specialist early childhood teachers in leadership positions and all other staff having specialised early childhood qualifications, low child–staff ratios, small group-sizes, appropriate wages and conditions etc.

It is very hard for people working with children in childcare services to acknowledge:

That despite our best efforts, we cannot do what is best for children and we cannot deliver a quality program for children.

But, until early childhood practitioners are able to do this ...

... until they can say this to each other ...

... and until they say it to the parents of the children they work with, those parents will never stand beside them as their allies in the quest for a level government investment in early childhood services that will deliver for children and society the benefits of a high-quality early childhood experience.

And unless we do say this to parents, we are actually saying that early childhood qualifications etc. don't matter.

This is the very hard edge of the real political and pedagogical context in which those on the front line in early childhood services are working.

Although most of my comments on these issues refer to childcare services, the rejection of the need for specialist early childhood qualifications schools and schools systems is alive and well. No education system in Australia makes early childhood teacher qualifications a requirement for teaching children in early years classrooms.

The only area where the need for specialist early childhood four-year degree teaching qualifications is uncontested is in preschools and kindergartens.

So, although the research is clear that specialist early childhood qualifications are essential, my comments here illustrate that this may/is not what is believed by:

• the parents who use childcare services, or who have children in the early years of school
• those who employ people to work with young children in childcare services and schools. And, importantly:
• many of the early childhood practitioners who work with young children everyday in childcare services and in schools.

In relation to my third criteria for professions which have respect and recognition:

That there is no debate about the need for specialist early childhood qualifications

Early childhood professionals do not meet this criteria, and this is a fundamental problem.

This is fairly confronting, but I think my fourth criteria for being a profession that is respected and recognised provides some insight into why this is the case.

That fourth criteria was:

That the work of recognised and respected professionals (doctors, firefighters, paramedics, nurses etc.) has demonstrable and immediate effect.

That is, there is an intervention, and a demonstrable effect that can be attributed to that intervention:

• You break an arm and the doctor fixes it.
• You are in an accident and the paramedic stabilises you.
• You undertake research and hopefully you generate some findings.

In early childhood this is not quite so evident. There are four reasons for this, I think:

• The lack of staff with specialist early childhood qualifications—or indeed any qualifications—in many childcare services and by many teachers working in early years classrooms.
• The endemic problems associated with competency standards based training and indeed the current training regime in this country.
• The under-emphasis of subject/discipline knowledge in many early childhood courses at all levels (MacNaughton, in Cullen, 2005).
• The lack of any real discipline knowledge by staff working in many early childhood services and, I suspect, in the first years of schooling.

How can we expect staff with little or no qualifications, many of whom work in an environment where there is no early childhood leadership, to be able to talk coherently and in an informed way with parents about how what happens in the service supports their child's emerging competence in a range of areas such as literacy, numeracy, creativity and social and emotional development?

How can we expect these staff members to make specific connections between what they do and children's learning?

For example:

How many early childhood practitioners in children's services can make the connection between the describing, sorting and grouping that children often do in their play, and the language and concepts of classification that is a part of literacy and numeracy development later on; and then talk to parents about that or respond to their questions?

How many are able to explain to parents why sustained conversations that engage children and that go beyond simple instructions and questions and answers are so important to children's cognitive and social and emotional development?

How many people working with children in children's services can explain to parents why they count children's toes, fingers etc.? How many can be explicit about the value of this interaction with children? That 'yes, it is fun, but it also it helps children feel secure when these known jingles and rhymes are repeated'? And, 'at the same time children are learning that there are patterns and order in the way we say numbers and that later children will learn that the last number said tells us how many there are'?

Given this, how can we expect parents to believe that the programs in children's services are structured to ensure the active participation of children in learning experiences that will result in the construction of culturally valued knowledge such as subject/discipline knowledge, as well as enhancing children's sense of themselves as competent and able, if staff cannot make this connection for those parents (Cullen, 2005)?

In short, if we cannot engage with parents in this way, why should they believe that specialist early childhood leadership and qualifications matter? If we cannot make the connection for parents between what they see happening in early childhood programs and what their children are learning, why would they believe that this is a task which requires specialist knowledge and not just something anyone can do?

In the list of respected professions I set out previously, the link between the intervention and the outcome is apparent. Equally important is that each of these professionals is able to talk with deep, specialised knowledge about why this is the case—in this way, making the link between specialist knowledge, and a positive and intentional intervention and outcome.

This is, I think, a key issue in the quest by the early childhood profession for respect and recognition.

A key issue here is the lack, by many early childhood professionals, of subject or discipline knowledge. There is often an unnecessary tension in early childhood programs between subject or discipline knowledge and child-centered, enquiry-based learning. With this goes a fear that subject/discipline knowledge will bring a push-down approach. The fact is that discipline knowledge is as essential to effective teaching as a number of other knowledges—including knowledge of pedagogy, of how children grow and learn, of context and theory.

I was much amused recently when I read of the findings of a study which showed that children learnt more mathematics, and more easily, when teachers (early childhood teachers) had more mathematics and more subject knowledge. Why should we be surprised?

If teaching is an active, complex, contextualised and intentional process, how can we teach if we do not understand what we are trying to teach? This view of teaching is entirely consistent with sociocultural theory, as is a respect for and knowledge of subject/discipline content. Such knowledge is culturally valued knowledge and brings with it educational, social and economic benefits (Cullen, 2005). Early childhood professionals cannot stand aside from subject/discipline knowledge, as it is one of their core obligations to children and to families.

I think one of the core reasons why early childhood practitioners are not on the list of respected and valued professionals is that many cannot explain to parents and others the connections between their day-to-day practice and young children's learning.

Only when early childhood practitioners can do this will parents and others believe that specialist knowledge is essential. Only when we are able to be explicit in this way will they believe that early childhood leadership is essential and only then will parents really believe that it is not a job that anyone can do—that it is really about learning and development that is supported in a planned and intentional way, in a caring environment, and within a program which sees children as capable, curious and competent.

All of this leads to the conclusion that the current political and pedagogical context is pretty challenging for those on the front line; and yet there are real opportunities to make progress now.

To realise these opportunities:

• We will need to be brave—we will need to tell it as it is, and not as we would want it to be.
• We will need to acknowledge the current gap between aspirations and what's possible in children's services where 'the basics' in regard to child–staff ratios, group sizes, and early childhood leadership and qualifications do not exist.
• We will need to acknowledge that it is not possible to deliver quality early childhood services under these conditions—this will be hard to do.
• We need to talk to each other about this—we need to get organisations such as unions and Early Childhood Australia to take up these challenges.
• We will need to tell parents the truth of what is happening—only if we do this will they become our allies and stand beside us in our quest for young children.
• We will need to promote and support any moves toward evidence-based state regulations or national standards. Such regulations will put pressure on all service providers—corporates, privates and community-based providers—to provide the structural foundations on which to build a quality program. We need to be robust in our acknowledgement that this will cost more money.
• We will need to privilege discipline subject knowledge in the range of knowledges fostered in the early childhood teacher education programs and other courses—not as the most important of these knowledges, but as one of the key areas where the work of teachers resides.
• We will need to take responsibility for our own learning and for the courses we offer, so that early childhood teachers are able to make the connection between their interventions and children's short- and long-term learning.
• We will need to play an active role in ensuring that the work going forward now on the development of teaching standards is inclusive of the work done by teachers working in birth-to-five settings.
• We will need to be strong in our requirement for equivalent teaching degrees for those providing leadership in early childhood settings for birth to five-year-olds—I am referring to a trend towards three-year education degrees for people working with this age group. When a four-year degree is the norm, these courses are a short-term solution that devalues the complexity and significance of the work done by teachers in childcare settings. It is a solution which undermines the quest for pay parity for teachers in childcare settings.
• We will need to ensure that early childhood teaching degrees—and, indeed, all early childhood qualifications—are robust and that we don't short change children.
• We need to challenge the adequacy of a competency-based training approach in preparing people to work with young children.
• We will need to stand together to argue for pay parity for teachers regardless of setting, and proper wages and conditions for the other early childhood professionals working in early childhood services.

What I have suggested here will cost money—and cannot be achieved in the life of one government.

Quality children's services are not cheap, and will not be achieved without further investment by governments and probably families. Currently, the cost of child care in particular is kept down by the very poor wages of the people who work in those services. This cannot be a condition of affordable care for families and improved productivity for the economy.

What we need is a long-term plan which will tackle the fundamental challenges to the provision of quality early childhood services.

What is needed is political leadership and commitment to a vision for children first, and as a consequence to society, including the national economy now and into the future.

• We need a commitment to a long-term (10 years at least) strategic plan which sets goals based on the research, sets funding targets and moves towards these over the life of a number of governments.
• We need a long-term plan which is realistic and reflects achievable timeframes for the installation of a workforce defined by early childhood pedagogical leadership, early childhood qualifications for all staff, and sustained by appropriate wages and conditions.

Crucially, we also need:

• a plan that gives parents real choices to work or to stay at home with their children, particularly infants.

Young children and quality of their childhood is too important to be left to chance.

I leave you with two thoughts that have been important to me when I am trying to think through difficult issues:

If you want to go to new places you have to lose sight of the shore

And, from my daughter when she five years old or less:

How come, Mummy, what I knew all about yesterday I know all about today, but I know it differently?

A learner for sure!

We will all need to be learners if we are to work in the best interests of young children.

I count it as a privilege to have been asked to address you.

Thank you.

References

Galinsky, E. (2005, February). The economic benefits of high-quality early childhood programs: What makes the difference?. Washington, DC. Retrieved 4 December 2007.

Hedges, H., & Cullen, J. (2005). Subject knowledge in early childhood curriculum and pedagogy: Beliefs and practices. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 6(1), 66-79.

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