About the Survey:
The survey was conducted online over one week in early May. A total of 360 people responded before the survey was closed.
Respondents included ECE owners, managers, and teachers, parents, teacher educators and others working in or with the ECE sector. They represented a diverse range of early childhood services including private and community based services, centre and home-based networks, teacher-led and parent-led services, language nests, and services with different philosophies (e.g. Montessori and Rudolf Steiner).
The survey asked people how they felt the Government was performing and what changes they would like to see, as well as how they felt things were going in the sector overall.
Top five priorities respondents felt the Government should focus on were:
- Improving the current ratio of one teacher for every five under-2s, to 1:4
- Restoring funding for services employing 100% registered teachers Limiting the number of children in groups/classes within a service's licence
- A review of community-based ECE services with discussion as to how these services could be better supported
- Lifting the minimum requirement for the percentage of qualified teachers in teacher-led services from 50% to 80%
- The survey results also show a high level of enthusiasm for funding to be made equitable among the different services to enable under-funded services to survive and give parents greater options when it came to deciding what type of service to use.