In 2019, the 5-yearly review of the National Quality Framework will be conducted, and the NSW Government has been chosen to lead this review.
Since its introduction in 2012, there would be many childcare providers as well as parents who would say that the National Quality Framework is in need of adjustments and improvements.
Some of the possible areas for re-examination could include:
- the overall approach toward achieving quality as well as health, cognitive, social development and educational outcomes for children;
- the different treatments across long daycare, family daycare, community preschool, mobile, out-of-school-hours-care, etc;
- the different implementations of assessments and ratings and the consequences of publishing out-of-date/inaccurate ratings;
- the confusions over changing the standards for assessments and ratings (for example for Exceeding) over time, thereby risking services’ ratings effectively being “downgraded”;
- the qualifications of and labour supply for educators and teachers;
- the differing context and applications of educators:children as well as teachers:children ratios across states/territories;
- the requirements for the physical environments;
- the different funding arrangements across jurisdictions for Universal Access funding;
- the administrative overheads to maintain compliance; and
- the cost impact and affordability for parents and taxpayers as well as service providers;
… just to name a few.
The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW is seeking input of issues and experiences providers have had with the National Quality Framework, as well as suggestions/ideas/etc for improvements so that ACA NSW can begin its preparations and advocacies for the Review of the NQF.
ACA NSW members can provide their input feedback via the portal below: