-
First Early Childhood Teacher Education
The first training course for Queensland early childhood teachers was run by Mary Agnew working with teachers using the work of Friedrich Froebel concerning Kindergarten (Logan & Clarke, 1984). -
Period: to
Important Events in the History of Childcare in Australia
-
Free Kindergarten Introduced
1907 is the year free creche and kindergarten was introduced in Brisbane for the poor (Logan & Clarke, 1984), -
dsfsa
-
Government Funding
In 1972 it was the first time that the Commonwealth Government had provided federal funding for childcare. Since this time funding has changed greatly. It amounted to $3.7 Billion in 2008 - 09 (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations). Intrestingly this was also the when the Commonwealth announced there would be non-compulsory preschool available for all 4-5 year olds (Logan & Clarke, 1984). -
National Association of the Education of Young Children
It was not until the 1980's where Australian's began lobbying to force the government to think about the quality of care given to children. It was during this period that there was a push to develop a system similar to that in the United States, a National Association of the Education of Young Children (Press, & Hayes, 2000). -
Child Care vs Home Care
In the 1980's held the ongoing battle that on one side advocated for women rejoining the workforce and quality child care and the other side being the traditional values that the mother belongs int he home and children are best cared for here (Elliot, 2006). -
Subsidies
The Hawke labour government changed the way the commoneatlth was paying subsidies and the benefits were more often going straight to the parents. Until this time oonly com bassed not for profit recieved funds. The Howard Government then stopped all funds to centres and gave only benefits to the parents (ABC, 2008). -
Increase in Child Care Providers
In 1991 there were 4100 Child Care services in Australia, the majority of which where run as not-for-profit organisations. In contrast to this there are now 13 368 services with a much greater number of private operators. It is interesting to say that during this period of time women's participation in the workforce increased by 50% during this same period (Department of Education, Employment and Relations, 2010). -
Increase in Child Care Business
From 2004-2007 there was a significant increase in how many Child Care businesses were running. This is mostly due to these smaller Child Care businesses employing a smaller stuaff of 1-19 people (ABS, 2009). -
Percentage of Children attending Child Care
In 2008 the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008) report that 65.8% of children under the age of 5 were attending some kind of child care setting that was not in their own or a family members home. -
National Quality Agenda
During 2009 the Austrlian Goverment developed and agreed upon a National Quality Agenda, It has been created to ensure that all early childhood services meet national quality standards. It aims to develop: Greater staff knowledge, improved interactios staff and students, a new rating system for parents to compare schools (Bureau of Statistics, 2009). -
Australian Early Development Index (AEDI)
In 2009 the first comprehensive AEDI report was published. The AEDI is completed by easly childhood educators to measure how well children are developing. This report showed that the majority of children are doing well. However 23.5% of children are developmentally vulnerable in one of the areas focused on. (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2010). Such Nationwide measures can be used to inform early childhood providers of the areas of development that need attention. -
National Quality Standard
The National Quality Standard was implemented and used in June 2010 (ABS, 2009). As a result of this framework being developed there has been a large increase in Child Care workers increasing their qualifications to a Certificate III or Certifiate IV showing the aim to provide quality care of young children (Department of Education, Employment and Workeplace Relations, 2010). -
dsfsd
