EXCERPTS.
Operators and unions said yesterday the 2007 election promise made by former prime minister Kevin Rudd and enshrined in a Council of Australian Governments deal with the states could not be delivered.
Official figures show that last year 28,977 childcare workers, more than a third of the workforce, had no qualifications, and just 10 per cent, or 7118, held a university degree in early childhood.
From January 2014 every childcare worker will have to have at least a certificate III qualification and every centre will have to employ a four-year university-trained teacher.
To help meet the demand for extra qualified workers, the government has committed $126.6 million over four years to remove TAFE fees for diplomas and created 1500 additional university places for early childhood teachers.
It is also subsidising the HECS fees of teachers who work in disadvantaged areas.
But the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union has told a Productivity Commission inquiry into workforce needs that it estimates 16,500 workers will need to get the most basic qualification -- a certificate III.
None of the government's programs address this issue, it says.
In its submission to the commission, the NSW government says at least 5800 workers in that state alone will have to be upskilled.
NSW is currently the only state that requires university-trained teachers in childcare centres and many childcare centres were unable to recruit a teacher last year. Childcare NSW vice-president Lienna Mandic said all five of her centres were operating without a teacher. An extra 700-1000 teachers would be needed to fill jobs in smaller centres in the state from 2014.
The Australian Childcare Alliance estimates that Victoria would require between 700 and 800 new teachers. In Queensland, more than 200 centres were having trouble filling teachers' jobs.
The alliance wants the government to introduce a bonded HECS scheme where a year's HECS fees would be waived for every year a teacher graduate worked in childcare.
The Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations skills shortage survey shows only 54 per cent of childcare worker job vacancies were filled last year.
-reprinted from The Australian