28 October 2011
As Children's Week (23-29 October) focuses attention on our youngest Australians, the NSW Children's Services Forum has welcomed the release by the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs of the draft Education and Care Services National Regulations, which will improve the quality of early childhood education and care services across Australia. The NSW Children's Services Forum collectively represents around 2,000 services across NSW that are affected by these regulations. 

"The regulations are a welcome and much needed reform that will improve the quality of services and outcomes for children in long day care, family day and preschool services" said Alison Peters, Director of the Council of Social Service of NSW, which convenes the Forum.

The key changes for early childhood services include:

• minimum staff to child ratios;
• minimum qualifications for staff; and
• the requirement to employ a university qualified teacher.

The requirements are being phased but NSW has been ahead of the game with the introduction of the 1:4 staff to child ratio for children under two years at the beginning of 2011.

"The Regulations are similar to existing NSW Regulations so compliance will not be a major issue. The NSW sector must now aspire to high quality standards to ensure the achievement of the reforms and great outcomes for children" said Leanne Gibbs, CEO of Community Child Care Cooperative Ltd (NSW).

A disappointing aspect of the regulations is that it has still not secured minimum staff child ratios and qualifications for Out of School Hours (OSHC) services.

"This omission will mean that there are still Outside School Hours Care services in Australia that are not required to meet any mandatory qualifications and ratios. It is hard to ensure a single national platform of quality for Outside School Hours Care Services when each state and territory has different minimum ratio and qualifications requirements for school age care – and in some cases like NSW, no minimum requirements" said Robyn Monro- Miller, Executive Officer of the Network of Community Activities.

"High quality early childhood education improves the life outcomes for children especially those from families on low incomes or disadvantaged backgrounds and the draft regulation seeks to improve the quality of children's early education experience" said Alison Peters.

Contact:

• Alison Peters 0425 231 814
• Leanne Gibbs 8922 6411
• Robyn Munro-Miller 0403 028 781

The NSW Children's Services Forum is comprised of state-wide, not-for-profit community based children's service organisations. The Forum aims to:

• promote the role of not-for-profit children's services;
• advise governments on the quality, range and provision of children's services; and
• engage in regular dialogue with other stakeholders in children's services.

Current members include:

• Australian Community Children's Services (NSW Branch)
• Early Childhood Australia (NSW)
• Community Child Care Cooperative Ltd
• Contact Inc
• Community Connections Solutions Australia
• Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS)
• Ethnic Child Care, Family & Community Services Co-operative Ltd
• Gowrie NSW
• KU Children's Services
• Local Government & Shires Association Children's Services
• Mobile Children's Services Association Inc
• Montessori Australia Council
• Montessori Australia Foundation
• Network of Community Activities
• NSW Family Day Care Association
• Occasional Child Care Association
• Playgroup NSW Inc
• SDN Children’s Services
• UnitingCare Burnside
• UnitingCare Children's Services