Early childhood education and care in Australia

Abstract

There has been significant reform of early childhood education and care within Australia in the past years. It has become a highly politicized issue around issues of quality, affordability and accessibility. In each election, policies within early childhood education and care are hotly debated and scrutinized. In 1996, the election of the Howard government intensified the marketisation of care, removing the small subsidies paid to non-profit services. This suggested that the government allowed and supported the privatisation of the early childhood sector. Today the majority of the early childhood sector in Australia is within the private sector. The sector continues to grow, as more demand is sought from families of young children. The approach taken by the Australian government has been described by Sumsion (2012) as a national experiment in corporatised early childhood education and care. Hence, the focus of this chapter is to provide a historical perspective of Australian early childhood education and care, before providing an overview of the current situation the Australian context. The chapter concludes with suggestions for ways forward for Australian early childhood education and care.