No documents on children's benefits found to support Regulation 272's "at all times" requirement

Under NSW's freedom of information obligations, ACA NSW received formal confirmation that the NSW Department of Education does not have any documents (over the last 17 years since 2008) showing the benefits for children as a result of Regulation 272's requiring degree-qualified early childhood teachers (ECTs) "... at all times ...".

For many years, ACA NSW has been concerned about the application of Regulation 272 for long daycare services especially during severe labour shortages. And anecdotally, ACA NSW has noticed NSW services being given a breach notice for non-compliance with Regulation 272 for not having their ECTs "... at all times ...".

Moreover, ACA NSW has also questioned how Regulation 272 would be applied to:

• the 14 NSW long daycare services that operate 24 hours a day;

• the 2,182 NSW long daycare services that open between 5 am and before 7.30 am;

• the 477 NSW long daycare services that close between after 6.01 pm and 11.30 pm; and

• the up to 62 NSW long daycare services that operate on Saturdays and Sundays.

The NSW Department of Education confirmed they did not hold any documents that can show the benefits for children for having degree-qualified early childhood teachers "... at all times ...".

This latest response adds to the NSW Department's recent confirmation of also having no evidence to justify the (ridiculously) higher English proficiency requirements on some ECTs when the testing organisation themselves confirm that more than two-thirds of native English speakers cannot achieve such an English proficiency level.

As previously stated, while ACA NSW is not seeking any reductions in the number of ECTs, it is however seeking a more reasonable recruitment and deployment of ECTs, especially when all other Australian states do not follow Regulation 272. Moreover, ACA NSW also seeks systemically superior children's outcomes from having such a higher number of ECTs, given this is not demonstrated in the overall quality ratings nor the quality ratings on Quality Area 1.

For any further information/clarification, please contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.

PUBLISHED: 30 MAY 2025