I also feel that the name ‘child care centre’ should be changed to ‘early educational centre’ to recognise us as professionals and for what we do with the children along with our pay.
My centre is in a farming community in the Lockyer Valley in Queensland and I am proud of each of us for what we do and our dedication to the early learning of the next generation and I would like the government to also recognise us.
I have worked in childcare over the last 14 years. When I first started, I ran my own family day care. I had two to four children in my care at one time, I had no qualifications (the only qualifications was the love of children), I would start my day at 4:30am and finish at 6pm, sometime I would even have children in my care at night til 2am in the morning just to make ends meet as the pay was only $4 per hour per child.
I did family day care before I had my own children, I thought that when I had my own children I would be able to stay at home with my children educate and spend the first five years with them without having to leave my home for work. My children counted in my ratio’s as I was registered, ( I know many were not and the number of children they cared for was the number they thought they could manage) so it became impossible to continue at home when I had two children, I just could not afford to pay my bills and even at times by groceries.
So I did what I had to do, as I didn’t want to leave the child care sector as this was all I wanted to do since the age of 13. I applied for a job at a centre and was employed. With two children, childcare fees, bills, groceries and a car to pay off. I wasn’t working as long of hours, had better pay, but when I started a mother of two working full time I was on an hourly rate of about $13.
I am now a mother of 3 and hold my Advance diploma in children’s services. My pay rate is still under $25 an hour. I am a Room Educator and the 2IC of a local centre and only receive the pay of a Qualified Diploma in children services. I still work full time and after have my third child I could only afford to stay at home for 4mths. I have had to update my car so yet again I have payments to make, I find that I cannot get ahead.
Times have changed, this is a positive for childcare, better quality for children. We now have to hold qualification, run a program and extend on children’s learning, right reports on the children in our care. This is all brought in by the Australian Government, a Government that wants better education for the children of today, but don’t want to pay the educators for it, how is this fair.
I have worked as a centre coordinator for 10 years, in this time I have seen many quality staff members leave the sector due to pay and stress. They have secured higher paid jobs in fields such as administration with less responsibility.
I feel in the sector we are not recognised for the work we do on a day to day basis to met all the requirements of regulations and education and care.
We are:
teachers
Nurses
mothers
fathers
role models
programmers
cleaners
IT specialists
marketers
administrators
WHandS officers
negotiators
social workers
This can be all in one day.
The requirements and expectations are much higher than what they were 10 years ago and the pressures in the sector have escalated. Many staff member suffer from stress due to the expectations and work load.
What we need to make a difference in the sector:
support, training, pay increase to keep staff consistency, additional staff to cover planning time. This would lower the stress levels and keep staff in the sector.
Currently we spend majority of time on staffing and training new staff and this cycle continues due to the lack of interest in the sector.
I am still in the sector as I love my job.
This submission has been put forward by [names] the educators at [locality] Slacks Creek (a small, 41 place, private centre in outer Brisbane). [name1] is a mother of four, a grandmother, an early childhood teacher, as well as the director and owner of this centre, with 35 years’ experience in the field. [name2] is also a mother of three, grandmother and the owner and a qualified educator.
“Every dollar we invest in Early Childhood education can save more than $7 later on- boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing incidents of violent crime.” Barack Obama
- Many intelligent people have been saying similar things, for many, many, many years. This is simply common sense. Now it is not only becoming a joke, but an insult, that our government is not responding to its duty of care to its youngest citizens , the potential future leaders of the world, and to those who teach and care for them.
- The newly proposed government policy is steeped in economic justification with no trace of concern for real early childhood education and the wellbeing of each child and family - those individuals who weave the fabric of this country. When in reality to ignore a plan for a strong, quality and caring early education for our children IS to ignore long term economic strength and growth. How dumb and uncaring can they be?
- It is high time the government realises that the majority of the population (the people that vote) not only know and understand what Obama has said but expect that our government knows and understands it as well. They expect that our government take right action, put the right , fair and just amount of investment into child care.
- We feel insulted and patronised that, when once we were at least on the road to quality (The new NQF wasn’t perfect yet), we are now taking major and dangerous leaps backwards. And we would like to remind the commission that quality early childhood care and education begins with quality educators and the very least the government could do is to simply fund early childhood inservice and external training and professional development. The quality of the training courses themselves is a mix mash of “quickly get them trained because we’re short staffed” and “I couldn’t get into uni, so I’ll just do childcare” and “sorry this Advanced Diploma that you have half completed and paid has been discontinued”. So many of the best child care educators gained that expertise through the mentorship of the more experienced and qualified educators in their workplace. This takes time and money, when staff have to be replaced to consistently maintain ratios.
- Early childhood educators have had no voice, parents and their children have no voice, and even when we shout, those that have that power to change and improve things don’t listen.
Another very important issue that the commission should be aware of is the ‘great divide’ in public opinion between privately owned/for profit child care centres and not for profit/ community centres. This is also appalling, and an insult to every private centre owner and every educator who works in a private centre and every ounce of care, love and unpaid time we have put into our little private centre ( as owners, licensees, Kindergarten Teacher, Educational supervisor, Administrator, bookkeeper. In fact being called a ‘for profit’ centre is a joke, as we put every dollar of ‘profit’ into improving our quality; sending our educators to workshops and professional development training, purchasing resources, and becoming as eco-sustainable as possible. We’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to educate our educators around the new National Quality Guidelines and new curriculums, ( the few ‘FREE workshops put on by ACECQA were booked out within days, and even though the demand was obvious, no extra workshops were offered. It also costs thousands of dollars to pay our educators for their study time, programing and documenting time, and thousands more for the relief staff to replace them. We spend thousands of dollars paying the wages of extra support educators so as we never refuse care for children with special needs. It took approx. 8 hours of administrative time to complete an application for special needs support funding, only to receive it 10 weeks after the child had started attending, not back dated, and even then less than half of the support teacher’s wage is covered, ie. $16.50 per hour, and only for 5 hour per day. The child attends 2 days per week and attends 8 hours each day. We employ an extra carer for the whole 8 hours at 22.50 per hour.
And PLEASE don’t think for a moment that increasing the child to staff ratio or reducing the qualification standards will create more affordable or flexible childcare – it won’t! It will simply create an sector in which staff will enter with little expertise or qualifications and leave more quickly, stressed, poor and burnt out, and centres with high staff turnover are much less capable of providing any care much less affordable or flexible, or heaven forbid – quality care!
Someone who has the power the change things must soon realise that the country’s childcare educators are stressed, and need more support, both financial and professional. But this load cannot be burdened or sustained by the child care centres and families alone. We implore that all governments, local, state and federal, address the inequalities around funding and professionalism in the sector: And we are suggesting that the only way this can be done fairly and ethically is for government representatives to educate and familiarise themselves with every part of the sector, and their financial and professional burden, e.g. single centre privately owned centres, (as we are); multi centres privately owned; community centres, private school-based centres; family day care; corporate multi-site centres, as each of these have very different demands and support needs.
We appreciate the opportunity to put forward our views through this submission and look forward to a favourable outcome.
I would also like to suggest that we need to utilise educators like me who have bben in the sector for over 17 years. I hold a diploma, have have been a director. Due to the lack of ECT's we need to support people like me and encourage us to do our degree based on prior and practical experieces, just like TAFE did to encourage the CCC workers to obtain thier Diploma. WE have not been able to employ a ECT on a afull time basis, we have had many wonderful casual workers that are happy to stay as casuals as they are on a much higher wage and have alot less paper work to complete, especially the elders ECTs who are full of wonderful ideas, fantastic with the children, but unfortunately many find the new way very complex and the amount of doccementaion takes up to much time and some are not so good with todays technology and would be taking far more work home than usual to complete or even obtain assistance from their children to complete the work asked of them. I would be interested in completing my ECT if my prior learning and extensive experience was taken into consideration, so It would not take me 8 yrs part time to complete my degree. Utilise what we have in the workforce to fill many ECT positions that we so desperately need. Consistancy of care.
How do you expect to know about childcare with very little or no knowledge about what actually occurs day to day?
after working in childcare for 24 years i find myself ready to leave the sector due to the inconsistency with all governments plans and approaches.
i have completed 3 years of training and I am am currently on $23.14 per hour and although i am a competent worker with years of experiences across all age groups, I find it difficult to accept the paper work that is required to complete on daily basis. For example
on commencement fill out form to check the boundaries whilst caring for children
then care for children, meet and greet parents
try and have a paid morning tea break which is not always allowed as the children come first [sorry what about the workers and their needs]
write [that is hand write write daily information for parents] and find time to print out pictures for parents]
observe and record children’s development
prepare journals with photos, hand written learning stories, including E.Y.L.F. outcomes, philosophy’s, NQF linking, reflections – no time
whilst engaging with children
2 hours programming is given each week to record these observations with pictures for the parents
many parents will miss out on this information due to the time commitment
there is no other time to complete paper work except to work within your own personal time
come and work with me and see what actually occurs daily.
then prior to children going outside play another playground check and another form to complete on completion of shift - this usually occurs after my finishing time – also check to make sure all parent sign in sheets are complete and if not I must complete these forms in each room before checking the centre is secure before actually leaving for the day quality care no longer exists
Cost
The Coalition’s Policy for Better Child Care and Early Learning will commit $2 million for the Productivity Commission to perform a major review of child care and to conclude this review within 12 months.
The Coalition will also restore the $12.6 million of funding cuts carried out by Labor to Occasional Child Care. This restoration will be fully in place from 2014-15.
is your government crazy?
what about the educators
the government has lost sight of what childcare was established for.
look back in history to note that childcare was for working parents and the hours that were needed for them
this what educators are looking for in the immediate future
lower numbers for quality care
recognise our study status
train directors efficiently to understand the pressures of educators
educators are paid low wages as they are indirectly supporting childcare cost - this has to stop and we want to be valued as educators not baby sitters
remove ECT’s from our sector as they they have been trained to boost the children’s academia but does not accommodate the children’s basic needs [many primary teacher’s have concerns about the children entering the school systems who have very little skills to start prep year]
put ECT’s in the school grounds to accommodate their needs for them to progress into the year
TAFE training of educators have been doing this work, and have much better results, especially with behaviour management. why waste the ECT’s education in this sector.
parents are only after a place to leave their children whilst at work/study such as yourself when you were completing your Masters. the life experiences of the educators plays a better role with children who educate the children with skills that supersede the qualities of ECT’s
can’t buy a holden car as my wages pay for my mortgage which hold more importance to me [roof over my head]
no respect for the educator’s come on sussan get with the program and exchange your weekly wage for mine and i will be able to buy an new Holden car in just week and support the sector that your government doesn’t want to.
trying doing a yearly educator’s tax return
low wages and living – you are so far removed from low wages with your education – what would you be doiing now if you were not assistant education minister – i guarantee you would be on a much lower income working with your study
you are ignorant – supervision – try and supervise large number of children whilst engaging
perhaps you can give suggestions how to supervise or try it yourself one day
where is your respect for the sector – you should be removed from your position with comments you are making - you have no idea how little we are paid [ i am talking about the educators that have not been paid the $3.00 or $6.00 increase] i am talking about the base rate for child care sector
qantas - come on do you really think we can afford a mortgage, new Holden car and a Qantas plane ride. you have idea of reality
sussan do you really think we are just baby sitters!!!!!!!!
get out into the sector and see what really happens and do not attend private centre’s who not only charge the parents BUT GIVE their for staff [the Directors] to have bonus – they are only a front person and do not do any work with children but expect the educators to complete all their tasks no matter what. [especially when they are on facebook most the day or receiving private calls] which educators are not permitted.
technology- we are still in draconian ages where hand writing was acceptable.
sustainability – is a large part of E.Y.L.F. – do you realise this has been occurring in childcare centres for years and i am talking about 20 years. parents help keep cost down by donating appropriate toys, recycling old household equipment, collage materials, plants for gardens time
you and your minister for education need to look at where childcare is heading and if you are smart enough so you think, do the right thing by the educators who are keeping this sector going.
alternative – shut down all childcare centre’s and head back into the past where mother’s remained at home\ teaching their own children basic life skills which they no longer possess
I am a very passionate early childhood educator and currently trying to complete my Certificate III. When I said trying, I really mean I am budgeting, paying bills, rent, food and paying for my own TAFE fees. But it has taken me two and a half years to complete a 6 month course, because I CANNOT AFFORD IT! My pay is crap yet I put in 110% in every morning I walk through the gate I am energised, enthusiatic and empowered when I look at children's faces to give them a brighter future. When people ask me what I do and give me that 'OH' reply, my heart drops! But my blood still pumps because I am here for the children, not just their noses but for their physical, mental and social development.
As an early childhood educator in a community centre in Canberra I would like to write about the work environment for educators and the current Early Years Learning Framework.
I hold my diploma in children's services and have almost completed my bachelors of Early Childhood Education. The childcare service I have been working with for four years now has already been accredited and received outstanding in two quality areas and meeting the national standard in 5 quality areas. I was the educational leader at the centre during that time. The setting is Lyons Children's Centre and is part of an Early Childhood School model. The school is only a few years old however during my time in this setting I can confidently say that this is a fabulous model and should be introduced across the country.
It is currently mandatory to hold a qualification in children’s services or be studying and working towards a qualification in children’s services to work in a childcare setting. I strongly believe that this should not change. In my setting I am a room leader and throughout the year I am asked to supervise students who are on their prac placements in my room. I have observed that the depth of understanding from child development theory and practical experience is necessary for an educator to deliver a quality program. This cannot be overlooked. In my current team in our Nursery room we have three diploma holders and one person studying to complete her diploma and each of us has worked in our current childcare setting for 2-6 years. I have never worked in a more rewarding work environment. We are able to deliver a high quality program to the Lyons community and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
I am concerned that if the requirement to hold a qualification for children’s services is waived the quality of the childcare program with diminish dramatically.
It is common knowledge that educators are not paid a professional wage despite being professionals in our field. This has been acknowledged and accepted by childcare educators since we first began working in children’s services because “That’s just the way it is”. However despite it being so it is completely unacceptable. Parents and people in the community express outrage on a daily basis to us, usually following feedback on the good work we do. The work we do is challenging. It is rewarding but let it not be dismissed that it is challenging. We study hard to receive the qualifications required to work in this field and yet we still are not being paid a professional wage. This has been overlooked and ignored by the Coalition government completely and it is deeply regrettable. It is due to so many hard working educators in childcare that everyone else in society is able to be a part of the country’s workforce. By looking after and supporting our country’s children we enable each of you to work. Why are we being portrayed by the Coalition government as unimportant?
The current Early Years Learning Framework is working extremely well in our childcare setting. It is a document that enables educators to look at the whole child, and supports understanding of child development. It can be applied across all of early childhood to infants to eight year olds, and assists educators in tracking the child’s emotional, cognitive and physical growth and development. We love working with this document and do not want it to change.
RESPECT is something that is taught through observance and consistency in consequences when rules are broken. Though the new standards raise the bar in many aspects of care they do not cater for instilling realistic boundaries with children. Rules and routines are great for children but fail if their is no consequences but boundaries are constantly being extended. Children require boundaries to be firm so they can push against only to be pushed back into place when the moment requires it. How can any child grow up to expect any ‘authority’ figure if they know that they can undermine the ‘authority’ at any time with a tear or tantrum!!!! Childcare is important and so is a future where children are respectful and understand that important universal laws and rules are not simply guidelines to work their way around but something that helps protect us as individuals, a whole community, society and Nation. The feeling of balance and security breeds happier more focused people.
I have worked in the early childhood sector for 10 years. During this period I practiced full-time whilst becoming degree qualified. I have seen solid changes in a decade. When I started I worked for a profit service that advocated we were care only and children didn’t learn until school, so there was no reason to purchase resources other than what was absolutely necessary – this meant I ended up paying for teaching resources.
