Excerpts
There is a growing number of “serious incidents” in Australian early childhood services, including day cares.
A serious incident is one that seriously compromises the health, safety or wellbeing of a child. There were 160 such incidents per 100 services in 2024–25. This is up from 148 and 139 in the previous two years.
These figures follow explosive revelations of safety issues and abuse in the sector.
In response, there are several new national child safety measures. These include banning personal phones in early childhood services, improving recruitment, and making sure parents can see a service’s compliance history.
But one key area has not received the attention it needs. This is educator-to-child ratios.
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Some flexibility when using ratios helps services adapt to unexpected day-to-day changes such as sick leave. However, the research suggests some services are using loopholes as a standard way of operating, rather than for emergencies. This leaves children at risk, without adequate supervision.
The following ideas are based on recommendations from the Productivity Commission, other studies and our research:
- Increase staffing ratios to accommodate daily realities. These include child illness, breaks, hygiene and additional educational needs. The Productivity Commission has suggested 1:3 for babies, and we recommend 1:4 for toddlers and 1:8 for ages three to five. There also needs to be a “floater” – an educator who covers breaks and staff shortages.
- Create funded cleaning and administrative positions. This would improve educators’ status and job satisfacton, allowing them to use their training to educate and care for children.
- Tighten the rules. Make sure staffing rules reflect the rooms in which children belong, including only those staff actively working with the children.
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