Excerpts from the report:
In Australia Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is provided both in families and the community and policy needs to support the nurturing of children in each of these settings.
This paper analyses primarily the formal child care and preschool services provided to children from birth to the year before school (0-4 years old). It makes ten recommendations to improve access to high quality early childhood education and care services for all children and place the child care industry on a more stable and sustainable footing.
In summary ACOSS's main recommendations are:
- Publishing a Schedule of Government-Recommended Fees for services so parents can compare costs and quality of different service providers.
- Replacing the 30% Child Care Tax Rebate with a 30% Child Care Benefit Guarantee so all families will be paid at least 30% of the government recommended fee for services. Many families will be entitled to much higher levels of support to meet child care costs (with up to 85% being paid to lowest income parents).
- Providing 20 hours a week of State-funded Free Preschool Education for all children in the year before school, with the Australian Government extending CCB to all other preschool hours.
- Building a better planning system for early childhood education and care that identifies and responds to demand across all areas of Australia.