CAMPAIGN FOR A NATIONAL EARLY SCHOOL BID ON COURSE
A CAMPAIGN to see early childhood learning absorbed by state and territory education systems is gaining national support.
Parenthood campaign manager Georgie Dent appeared on ABC’S Q&A on Monday night promoting the parenting advocacy group’s calls to have early childhood education brought in line with formal education systems.
“Tinkering with a broken system is absolutely not the option right now. We need to radically reimagine early childhood education basically, and fundamentally we need to extend it into part of our education system,” Ms Dent said.
“Throughout COVID there has been very much warranted angst and discussion about how schools could continue to deliver education to kids and at no point has anyone said an adequate solution would be schools closing or a teacher losing their job.
“Our position is early childhood education should have the same certainty that school funding has.
“Educators in early childhood are among the lowest paid in Australia and yet the work they do is among the most valuable.”
Last week, the Townsville Bulletin did an investigation into the fragility of the early childcare sector amid COVID-19.
The Bulletin heard from anxious parents, providers and family day care providers who were caught in the middle of the Federal Government’s imperfect relief care package, which funded 50 per cent of pre-pandemic enrolment fees.
At the time, Ms Dent warned of the industry’s collapse should the Government abandon its rescue funding from June 28 when it is due to be reviewed.
The Bulletin spoke to former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill, who took a proposal to the Council of Australian Governments arguing that all states and territories take over responsibility for early childhood education.
Mr Weatherill said childcare had become a central policy issue for Australia.
Parenthood hosted a vir