Page 151 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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education. That is why the ACT government has delivered 500 new early childhood education places and will deliver a further 500 places over 2012-13. This will mean that many more families will be able to have their children in quality education and care as well as being able to participate in work.
I know from the conversations I have had with people in my old suburb of Holt that they are looking forward to the new centre that will be developed at Holt near the Kippax family and health centre. I know it will make a difference in their lives and their families’ lives to be able to access care and education.
The ACT government is helping families to access education and care services and to provide advice to help families make informed choices about their children’s early education. We have long been providing access to information about services through publications such as Choosing childcare in the ACT and the Guide to children’s services in the ACT.
Labor demonstrated our commitment to raising the bar in early childhood education and care when we signed up to the national partnership agreement in 2009. From January 2014 under the national quality framework, all ACT educators required to meet the educated care ratio will need to hold or be working towards a minimum certificate III level education. All educators will have the necessary knowledge and skills to make the most of every child’s potential.
We know workforce capacity is going to be an ongoing challenge for both the government and the sector and we know these quality reforms are important for our children. We are, therefore, taking steps to assist the education and care sector to address these workforce issues. We have, in collaboration with the ACT Children’s Services Forum and the sector, made substantial progress in implementing the ACT education and care workforce strategy.
The strategy focuses our efforts on four key objectives: (1), attract new educators to the sector; (2), retain existing educators in the sector; (3), develop and build the skills of the sector’s workforce; and (4), raise the professional profile of the sector in the ACT community.
Earlier this year Minister Burch launched the early childhood scholarship program, providing more than 80 full-time scholarships for educators to obtain the certificate III qualification. I know from my work with United Voice that I talked about yesterday in my speech that, for people in the sector who are already on low incomes, having the cost of the scholarship being something they do not have to worry about and for which the government has taken responsibility will make a huge difference to their lives, and also their ability in being able to meet the national quality framework and be able to provide the highest quality care and education for our children.
The certificate III is the minimum qualification requirement set out by the national quality framework and it is based on extensive research that tells us that qualifications matter. More than half of the scholarships have already been awarded, and applications will open again in January. Based on the overwhelming success of this
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