Page 315 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
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I think every parent would agree that they want the best available for their children and expect that, when they leave their children in care, they can be confident their child is safe, is clean and is in a nurturing environment that will enhance their child’s development.
Ms Burch and Ms Hunter are correct when they say that this is not just about childminding. But I think that there are many parents and policy makers who are a little concerned that childcare centres, especially long-day care centres, are being forced into a place where they become extensions of school, that they become places of learning more than they are places where children get to be children, where infants get to be infants, where toddlers get to be toddlers, and that there is an increased emphasis on preparing children for the school experience. I am not sure that the whole of the community is on board with that as a notion just yet. When we talk to parents, there are parents who are concerned about the emphasis on early learning rather than letting kids be kids.
There seems to be a bit of rhetoric coming from the minister. She wants to be able to characterise the Canberra Liberals as being opposed to the aims of the national quality agenda. I want to put on the record that the Canberra Liberals agree that the aims of the national quality agenda are reasonable. However, we have considerable concerns about the implementation process, and the associated costs are of serious concern to the Canberra Liberals.
Looking at the proposed structures, it is clear that the fees will rise further as a result of the high costs associated with the costs of running childcare centres under the new regime. Ms Burch wants to downplay it and always refers back to a report which I think she has not read, because if she had read it she would not be so keen to do so, the Access Economics report which is very limited in its scope and is a bit out of date by now. The experiences of people in the sector as they move towards the implementation of the national quality agenda would cast some doubt on some of the rationale in the Access Economics report.
The costs are of concern to my colleagues at the state and federal level and all the Liberal and coalition members responsible for childcare are working closely together to ensure that the voices of parents—parents in particular who seem to be quite unheard in this area—and those others in the sector are heard across the ACT and across the country as we move towards the implementation of a quality agenda.
Of concern to me is the outcome of higher child-to-staff ratios and the requirements of higher qualified staff. This in turn will create higher overhead costs which will inevitably be passed on to parents.
It is most interesting—and my office has been conducting extensive analysis through a survey across the sector in the ACT—that the common themes that emerge when you talk to childcare centre directors are these: centres will have to increase their fees, which are already the highest in the country, adding to the already high cost pressures on family. Some centres will have to cut childcare numbers to meet the new standards, which will be a burden on already long waiting lists in the ACT. Many childcare
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