The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) and ACA NSW have continued to have the overt discussions about the on-going and growing problem of oversupply of early learning services across Australia.

Thankfully, the major media outlets (including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, the ABC) since 2017 have started to report about the oversupply, but there remain some who perpetuate that Australia has an undersupply of early learning services.

Thanks to you, the data we collected and published last year illustrated that, in fact, oversupply has become a serious issue in many geographic areas.

With few barriers to entry for new or existing providers to set up new centres, the saturation of early learning centres in certain areas has led to many services experiencing lower utilisation, leading to higher costs for their families or in some instances a service closing down.

ACA and ACA NSW continue to believe that Federal, State and Local Governments should be compelled to act after being made aware of this issue and the possible impacts on Australia's youngest generation.

We believe that with the right policies in place, Australia can maintain a sustainable early learning sector that continues to provide families with affordable quality early learning services, thus giving Australia’s youngest generation the best start in life.

To this end, we've paired up with Australian Community Children’s Services (ACCS) and the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia (ELACCA) for the second year running, to commission a study to identify patterns in the under and oversupply of early learning services across Australia. 

But we need your help again for 2019!

What do we need from you?

ACA has created a survey which we are urging all early learning service providers to complete. It should take around 5-10 minutes of your time. You can complete the survey here.

The survey collects information on a range of items including the rates you charge per day, your occupancy rates per day and by age group.

All survey responses will remain confidential with the market research firm (Urban Economics) upon collection of the data. All partner organisations will not have access to individual survey responses.

Please note: When completing the survey, you will need to have your centre occupancy data close at hand. For those owning or managing multiple centres, we would kindly request that you complete the survey individually for each centre.

If you have any questions about the survey and its process, please do not hesitate to contact Kerrianne from Urban Economics on 07 3839 1400 or kerrianne@urbaneconomics.com.au.

As a unified voice, our aim is to use the resulting data to engage with relevant government departments and planning authorities, to work towards addressing the growing issue of oversupply in some areas and undersupply in others.

We thank you in advance for your support.

PUBLISHED: 23 OCTOBER 2019