Marketised Positioning of Early Childhood: New Contexts for Curriculum and Professional Development in Queensland, Australia

Abstract

The field of early childhood education is experiencing similar conditions to the rest of the Australian public sector, characterised by a climate of accountability for quality outcomes, emphasis on management at the local level and strong centralisation of control over curriculum and teacher appraisal within a context of significant reduction in public sector government spending. The ideology of the market underpins many of these reform directions, with particular consequences and effects in the early childhood area. This article uses as a focal case study the newly mandated Preschool Curriculum Guidelines for the state of Queensland, Australia, and their accompanying professional development of early childhood teachers and school principals. The outcomes for the professional development have been highly controlled and pre-specified through government departmental scrutiny by a competitive tendering process among potential private providers — all of whom include publicly funded universities as they themselves compete for additional money to justify their new role as entrepreneurs in an increasingly marketised system of higher education. The study focuses on the processes of control for the professional development associated with the new curriculum, with an emphasis on exploring the rhetoric and practices of ‘partnership’ underlying the approved models. The findings of the early phases of the study indicate a limited range of positioning available for early childhood teachers, school principals, and those involved in the delivery of the professional development. The guidelines and professional development activities appear to have expanded the relationships within the care and education sector while constraining the range of positions and relative autonomy of early childhood teachers. This is a significant finding in that this is the first time there have been statewide mandated Curriculum Guidelines and statewide professional development required of early childhood teachers.