Jay Weatherill | Early childhood education can help shape future of Australia

Last month we saw the first step in the federal government's plan to reform Australia's early learning and childcare system with legislation introduced to increase the childcare subsidy for parents from 85 to 90 per cent. This will reduce the cost for children attending for many families to $20 a day and make childcare more affordable for 1.26 million Australian families.

It will also be good for the economy - Treasury estimates that it will add 37,000 extra full-time workers into the economy, boosting productivity.

The legislation also contains other welcome initiatives. It guarantees 36 hours a fortnight of childcare for Aboriginal children and ramps up integrity measures to make sure the Commonwealth funding is well spent.

The government has also committed to other important early childhood initiatives - an ACCC inquiry into the cost of childcare which has risen by over 40 per cent in the last decade. Most of the sector are for-profit operators - the government needs to know public money is being well spent. At the same time workers' wages have remained stuck in the lowest income quartile, resulting in a workforce crisis. There are currently over 7,000 vacancies in the childcare sector across Australia - double the vacancies prior to the pandemic.

Secondly, the government has mooted changes to Fair Work laws which will help address the educator workforce crisis through better pay and asked the Productivity Commission to review the childcare and early learning sectors.

At the state level, NSW and Victoria are committed to funding 30 hours of free early education for all four-year-olds.

These are all positive steps.

However, many other changes are required to develop a high-quality, low-cost to parents, universally accessible early learning system connected to Australia's education system for families in regional and remote areas.

The problems plaguing the current system are many.

Right now, 57 per cent of regional families can't easily access early learning and childcare. The Mitchell Institute says 9.3 million Australians live in childcare deserts - places (mainly regional, rural and low-income communities) where there is insufficient access to childcare.

This detracts from children's development and prevents parents from working. This is exacerbated in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, such as the Northern Territory town of Ti Tree in the Anmatjere region where there are no local centres, meaning families must travel unsustainably long distances to access early learning and childcare.

It's a disgrace that in present-day Australia there are children and families stranded without any formal early learning options, most of them in regional areas and too many in regional and remote Indigenous communities.

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The evidence of the importance of quality in early learning for children is clear, but 13 per cent of long day care centres do not meet quality standards and 11 per cent, unable to attract early childhood educators and teachers during the current workforce crisis, have national quality standard waivers.

The activity test limits access to subsidised childcare and prevents at least 126,000 children from the poorest households from attending critical early learning and care.

This shows that the current system is exacerbating inequality rather than tackling it.

Australia's early learning system must be seen as a key part of a child's development and education rather than how it was originally conceptualised - childcare for those who had to work.

Developmental vulnerability is a large and preventable form of inequity and leads to a range of significant undesirable health, educational and social outcomes. Currently, over 20 per cent of children arrive at primary school developmentally vulnerable and not ready to learn. Many of them never catch up. Children growing up in childcare deserts are also twice as likely children living in metropolitan areas to start school developmentally vulnerable.

If Australia is to adopt best practice, all children need health and development checks and access to three days a week of early learning if they are to reach their potential.

The need for reform and investment has never been more urgent and not just for this generation of children. The global economy is in transition and its capacity to accommodate large numbers of people in low-skilled occupations is rapidly disappearing.

Back in Australia and the rapid ageing of our population means we must act quickly to increase the skills and productivity of the next generation if we are to remain a competitive economy that can sustain the income and services that characterise an advanced and decent society.

Reform must start at the beginning with our early learning system. The signs are encouraging with the federal government and the NSW and Victorian governments committing to reform. Where we are as a nation in 20 years will depend a great deal on whether we get a full reform agenda enacted or a piecemeal effort that misses the mark.