Yirrkala tops NT childcare

JUST 35 Australian childcare centres are rated as “excellent’’, almost a decade after national quality standards were introduced for 16,452 centres.

One in every 12 childcare centres is failing basic health and safety standards, shocking new statistics from the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) reveals.

Nearly 10 years after the federal, state and territory governments introduced quality standards, one in seven centres is flunking minimum requirements.

More than 2000 centres are still “working towards’’ minimum standards, after failing the latest quality checks, which rate centres on health and safety, staffing, the physical environment and regulatory compliance.

And 1102 centres are operating without the required number of carers, due to workforce shortages that have forced ACECQA to waive staffing requirements.

Nationally, 6.7 per cent of centres have been granted a staffing waiver – including 5.3 per cent in the Northern Territory. The nation’s top-quality childcare centres are celebrated in new excellence awards by childcare app KindiCare, which reveals that flash facilities are not as important as children’s experiences at daycare. The winners – based on ACECQA ratings along with Google reviews and ratings by parents using the KindiCare childcare-finder app – included single-centre operators and large childcare providers.

In the Northern Territory, the Yirrkala Preschool in Arnhem Land – where Aboriginal elders run traditional storytelling and dance activities – is the top centre.

Aboriginal rangers teach the children to make bush soaps, collect honey, make traditional fish traps and collect bush medicines.

KindiCare founder Benjamin Balk said the training and commitment of educators was just as important as flash facilities. “The winners all have passionate and dedicated staff,’’ he said.