Community Colleges Australia (CCA) has made a strong case for expansion of the number of fee-free child care training places to NSW adult and community education (ACE) providers.
Earlier this week, the NSW Government announced commitment of “25,000 fee-free training places to bolster the pipeline of skilled and job-ready workers for the early learning and care sector.”
Eligible courses are the Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care and the Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care, with enrolments closing on 31 December 2022.
Minister for Skills and Training Alister Henskens said the fee-free courses will help people upskill and boost budgets by removing barriers to accessing quality vocational education and training. Minister for Education and Early Learning Sarah Mitchell said the NSW Government’s revolutionary Early Years Commitment will create jobs growth and opportunities for people to explore a career in early childhood education.
NSW ACE providers play an important role in developing the state’s child care workforce. Data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) indicates that of the total 20,615 NSW government-funded early childhood Certificate III and Diploma students in 2020, TAFE enrolled 12,145 (59%), ACE providers enrolled 2,500 (12.1%) and private providers enrolled 5,815 (28.2%).
The commitment of 25,000 new government-funded places represents more than a doubling of state government support for early childhood learning training.
CCA CEO Dr Don Perlgut Comment
“On these figures alone, ACE providers play a significant role in early childhood learning workforce training. It's partly because of the well-known place-based approach that ACE providers take to their training, and their ability to partner easily with care providers, who trust the quality training of the ACE students. But it’s more than that: the NSW ACE sector plays a crucial role in key regions and with key population groups. ACE providers are important in northern, western, southern and southwestern outer regional Sydney, as well as the Central Coast, the Northern Rivers and the Tomaree peninsula. And it’s not only the regions – NSW ACE providers specialise in recruiting and graduating many of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged learners, according to CCA’s annual research reports. That means that NSW ACE providers over-deliver to Aboriginal learners, people with a disability, low-income learners and those aged 45+. All of these are essential groups as the state undertakes a priority care workforce expansion.”
Nine NSW ACE organisations provide child care worker training: ACE Colleges, Bankstown Community College (BCC Institute), Macarthur Community College, Macquarie Community College, Northern Beaches and Mosman Community College, St George & Sutherland Community College, TLK Community College and Tomaree Community College.
The disastrous role of profit in Australian early childhood education: "To achieve the aim that ECEC [Early Childhood Education and Care] in Australia becomes an essential service, like Medicare, it has to be delivered more on a basis of public need than private profit," says Professor Andrew Scott of Deakin University, convenor of the Australia Institute's Nordic Policy Centre (reported by the ABC). "To sustain adequate public expenditure on childcare, and to avoid further escalating fees for parents in Australia, there will need to be less reliance in future on paying subsidies to private, for-profit operators," Professor Scott says. This is a salutary lesson for the Commonwealth, New South Wales and Victorian governments, says CCA's Dr Don Perlgut: "Expanding child care by reliance on for-profit providers may set Australia up for many years of pain down the track, and runs the risk of building in structural disadvantages to our child care system."
