Page 1377 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 April 2013
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Mr Rattenbury referred to family day care. In addition to long day care it is important that we recognise and value the role of family day care in the provision of services and support to Canberra families. I made reference in the latter part of last year when we spoke on this subject of the government supporting the addition of new family day care providers in the ACT.
In addition to providing support to the workforce, I want to congratulate the big steps campaign on its perseverance and dedication in supporting the education and care workforce. Policies such as the early childhood scholarship program launched last year by the ACT government is a scholarship providing more than 80 full scholarships for educators to obtain a certificate III qualification. Due to the success of this program, the ACT government has committed to extend the program for another three years, providing funding for up to 90 additional scholarships—real benefits to real people working in the sector.
This scholarship program was designed to make training more accessible through the removal of barriers to study. These scholarships provide full course fees, start-up payments and financial support for employers to replace educators during study hours. Scholarships are available for educators in long day care, independent preschool and in family day care programs.
We are also committed to providing additional funds to support the participation of up to 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the program. These extended scholarships will address some of the barriers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people completing tertiary study as well as encouraging more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders into the education and care sector.
In addition, the ACT government has committed to delivering a new scholarship program for up to 25 educators. This scholarship will subsidise educators for some of the costs associated with obtaining their university degrees in early childhood education. We are collaborating with the ACT Children’s Services Forum and the sector in implementing the ACT education and care workforce strategy. The strategy focuses on four key objectives: attracting new educators to the sector, retaining existing educators, developing and upskilling the sector workforce, and raising the professional profile of the sector in the ACT community. This campaign, along with other initiatives, will serve to increase the capacity of the education and care workforce to meet the requirements of the national quality framework and the continuing demand for education and care places.
As Dr Bourke mentioned in his opening comments, the early years are the most important years. This is where we set the stepping stones, the foundation stones, of a young child and their capacity to learn and send them on their life’s journey. They are the critical, important years. This government will not step away from supporting the national quality framework or, indeed, putting moneys into bricks and mortar or into the workforce to support the sector.
We are disappointed that this collaborative work with the sector has not been met with bipartisan support. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, I am only aware of one other childcare policy—which was a centralised waiting list—put forward some years ago
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