The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW believes the assessment and rating of services that are ultimately rated as Significant Improvements Required, Working Toward and Meeting the National Quality Standards (NQS) ought to be on empirical terms. In other words, the service either meets or does not meet the NQS using quantitative measures. Such measures should also be publicly available so that they can be consistently and transparently administered.
Given the experiences of the NQF since 2012, ACA NSW believes the current 5 tiers of ratings has not lived up to the original aspirations. Instead, it has caused unnecessary confusion, jurisdictional inconsistencies, and a loss of confidence in the quality rating system by the sector.
Hence with the benefit of hindsight, a suggestion would be to overhaul the quality rating to have only 3 tiers:
- Exceeding
- Meeting
- Working Towards
In simplifying these tiers, and ensuring that the majority of criteria to meet those ratings must be on the basis of empirical and quantitative minimum measures, the Regulatory Authority would save a significant amount of resources in its administration and there would also be a restoration of faith in the quality rating process because of such consistencies of application.
NOTE: The above is an extract of the ACA NSW's submission to the
2019 NQF Review that was due on 30 June 2019.
PUBLISHED: 15 JULY 2019