Demand for childcare has soared over the past decade as Australian families seek to reconcile work and care responsibilities. But the cost of care keeps rising, waiting lists in many metropolitan centres are long, and high quality services are not always available. Australia's system of early childhood education and care is fragmented, and the major political parties have failed to take a comprehensive approach to policy development. So what would a good system of early childhood education and care in Australia look like? In this book, a selection of Australia's leading early childhood researchers, teachers, advocates and social policy experts consider:
The goals of a good national system How a high quality and equitable early childhood education and care system can be delivered. What makes quality care? Who should provide and who should pay? Training and professional development for workers Regulation and funding of services The authors offer a comprehensive set of policy principles that would deliver a better early childhood education and care regime for Australian children and their families.
Acknowledgements
Author biographies Introduction
Elizabeth Hill, Barbara Pocock and Alison Elliot Part 1: defining a high
quality ECEC system
1. The childcare policy challenge in Australia
Barbara Pocock and Elizabeth Hill
2. Lessons from the Swedish experience
Anita Nyberg
3. Home and away: the policy context in Australia
Deborah Brennan
4. The new discrimination and child care
Patricia Apps Part 2: setting the goals for a national system
5. The goals of a good national system: placing priority on the wellbeing of
children
Bettina Cass
6. Getting the basics right - goals that would deliver a good national
children's services system
Lynne Wannan Part 3: perceptions of child care
7. Contested, corporatised, and confused? Australian attitudes to child
care
Gabrielle Meagher
8. Employees' views on quality
Emma Rush Part 4: the question of quality
9. Public investment, fragmentation and quality care - existing challenges
and future options
Frances Press
10. Improving early childhood quality through standards, accreditation and
registration
Alison Elliot
11. The determinants of quality care: review and research report
Margaret Sims Part 5: who should pay? Who should provide?
12. Childcare provision: whose responsibility? Who pays?
Joy Goodfellow
13. Funding children's services
Eva Cox Appendix 1: participants at ASSA workshop Child care: A better
policy framework for Australia, University of Sydney, July 13-14, 2006
Index
Elizabeth Hill is a senior lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney. Barbara Pocock is professor emerita of business services at the University of South Australia. Alison Elliot is the Head of the School of Education at Charles Darwin University.
