Submission to AEU Inquiry into the provision of universal access to free high quality preschool education.
Early Childhood Australia applauds the decision by the AEU to undertake this Inquiry. It is an exercise in leadership and has provided a forum where issues that are of real significance to children and the early childhood profession can be discussed.
Our contribution to this Inquiry will focus on three issues
- The nature of the preschool experience
- Who is an early childhood teacher
- The need for a strategic vision for early childhood services for children from birth to eight years of age
The nature of the preschool experience
Early Childhood Australia also believes that an important task of this Inquiry is to be clear about the nature of the preschool experience, where and how it can be delivered and about the qualifications that are necessary to ensure that the outcomes of a quality preschool experience are achieved. It is important too that the Inquiry acknowledge explicitly that the outcomes of the preschool experience are dependent on the experience of the child’s very early years, that is prior to preschool. This is not to deny the research, which shows that a high quality preschool experience is beneficial. It is simply to open up the potential for an examination of the degree with the benefits of a high quality preschool experience are underwritten by the nature of the early childhood experience prior to preschool.
What is preschool? Is it about a particular sessional approach to programming or is it about the achievement of particular outcomes for children?
ECA believes that the focus must be on outcomes for children and what is essential to ensure the delivery of these outcomes.
For this reason ECA believes that a quality preschool experience can be delivered in a range of different settings. It can be:
- Integrated into the program of a long day care service
- Delivered in a free-standing sessional program
- In a sessional program in a long day care centre. ECA however would be concerned if such sessions were the only times in which these children interact with an early childhood teacher.
What is essential to the delivery of a high quality preschool experience?
ECA believes that for the desired outcomes to be achieved the preschool program, in whatever setting, must be delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher. Qualifications do make a difference. There is specialised knowledge of children and how they develop, grow and learn that underwrites the delivery of a high quality preschool experience.
Who is an early childhood teacher? Is it about qualifications and/or the educational setting in which they work?
Early Childhood Australia believes that an early childhood teacher is someone with a specialist early childhood teacher degree. A person with this qualification is a teacher irrespective of the setting in which they deliver their programs. It should be noted here that a generalist teaching degree often has insufficient focus on early childhood development, educational theory and pedagogy to be adequate for the task of teaching and/or being responsible for a preschool whether it be in a long day care setting or a free standing provision.
What is a specialist early childhood teaching degree and in what setting is it necessary.
ECA believes that it is important in this Inquiry to address the issue of what constitutes a specialist early childhood teaching degree and in what setting is such a degree necessary. ECA sees this issue as quite fundamental to the development of the strategic vision for early childhood services in which we believe the findings of this inquiry should be located.
The need for a strategic vision for early childhood services for children from birth to eight years of age
Young children are currently a focus for Government policy in a way that has not been seen before. The significance of the early years for children’s growth and learning and for their capacity to contribute constructively to the future social, economic and political life of the society is now uncontested. The result is that it is possible right now to make real gains for children. It is vital that this possibility is not lost because of a lack of a vision that is inclusive of all children from birth to eight years of age.
Given this, the AEU Inquiry must be explicitly framed by the knowledge that the early years, defined as birth to eight years of age, are important. Early experiences matter and, crucially, early relationships are formative not peripheral to outcomes for young children. It follows then that all who are involved directly in their care and development should be valued and all of the early childhood services attended by young children should be of the highest quality. Importantly, the essential components of high quality early childhood programs are the same regardless of setting. At the same time children’s experience is cumulative and so outcomes are to some extent dependent on what has gone before. The mantra that “we can fix it at preschool” is problematic and this needs to be acknowledged.
It is important that the Inquiry recognise this and place the preschool experience within this context.
Early Childhood Australia believes that the essential components of all early childhood programs including those in preschools and schools are set out in the Tasmanian, Essential Learning Document that says that early childhood programs should:
- Be a "rewarding and enjoyable experience for young children in which they play, explore, discover, rehearse, practice, build positive dispositions and revise concepts as they consolidate and adjust their understandings"
- Involve a strong relationship and professional partnership with the children’s families in which knowledge of the children is shared
- Evidence relationships between adults and children that are warm and nurturant, experiences that provoke the mind and brain, and protection from physical danger and biological hazards young children’s learning and growth
- Acknowledge, respect and taken into account in the program .the diversity that exists amongst children.
The characteristics of early childhood services that are necessary to deliver such programs:
- Adult: child ratios that support the development of strong, stable, sensitive and responsive relationships;
- Total group sizes that allow children and staff to work effectively. Total group size becomes a major factor in environments in which space, equipment and staffing are at a minimum;
- Staff with appropriate qualities and qualifications. In a long day care services ECA believes that the both the person teaching the preschool aged children and the Director of the service should be EC teachers.
- Conditions and wages that acknowledge the expertise, significance, and worth of work with young children and so ensure staff turnover is low and that people with early childhood teaching qualifications will chose to work in early childhood settings in the before school years.
Early Childhood Australia also believes that the separation of a campaign for universal access to a free high quality preschool experience from an overall strategic vision for early childhood services for children birth to eight years of age:
- Would be divisive and further disadvantage child care services in relation to wages and conditions,
- Would mitigate against the development of an integrated early childhood profession in this country.
- Would undermine the argument for early childhood teachers with high level specialist degrees in all services and primary schools;
- Would further undermine the provision of specialist early childhood teacher education courses by Universities.
ECA believes that the Inquiry should recommend the development of a strategic approach which covers the birth to eight experience and which outlines an approach to:
- The need for a mix of specialist early childhood teacher and other qualifications in all early childhood services/schools,
- Ensuring that proper wages and conditions in all early childhood services
- Ratios and total group size which allows for the adult child relationships so essential for good outcomes for children;
- A funding regime , which ensures that early childhood services are affordable for families;
- The provision of range of services to meet the differing needs of parents and children
- The development of a unified early childhood profession, and
- The creation of career path for early childhood professionals which clearly values equally work with children from to the birth to eight and which does not see progress as moving from centre based early childhood services into preschools, then schools and ultimately out of early childhood settings altogether.
This Inquiry has the potential to make a major contribution to children and the development of the early childhood profession. Early Childhood Australia urges the Australian Education Union to grasp this opportunity.
If you liked this article, you can 'social bookmark' it with others who might be searching for good content on early childhood. This means you can share your favourite webpages with others, or just keep an online list of your bookmarks so you can access them on any computer.
Read more about social bookmarks
|
|
