FAMILIES with young children may see increased Child Care Service (CCS) fees as the Government will be changing the way it works out CCS entitlements from Monday, July 10.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission are holding an inquiry into Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) as a result of these impending changes.
Cost and availability barriers that affect access to ECEC services, factors that affect supply, demand and competition in the market, the impact and effectiveness of existing price regulations and ways to support better outcomes for children and families will be considered.
Karen Treppo from the Phillip Island Early Learning Centre (PIELC), which began in 2013 and offers sessional Kindergarten, Pre-Kindergarten, Long Day Care and After-Kindergarten Care, believes the inquiry will be worthwhile and is hopeful it will lead to some much-needed change in the industry.
“I think anything that highlights looking into the industry can only be a good thing and see where we can make improvements and better conditions for our long day care staff.
“They are not well paid and work very long hours, and only get four weeks off a year, so I think the burn out rate and the pay are one of the factors that is influencing the industry,” Karen said.
Finding, maintaining, and keeping staff is, like many other industries, proving to be a huge issue for PIELC.
“Staffing is the biggest challenge for us in the industry at the moment, especially with COVID and the flu season, that puts extra pressure on services because rural is very hard to recruit early childhood educators.
“There just isn’t the same amount of people applying that we used to have.
“Staff still have to have holidays, especially in the long day care industry. Compared to kinder who have their set holidays, the long day car service runs 50 weeks a year.”
The availability of staff impacts on the number of children that can attend the Child Care Centre and staffing can be particularly challenging for the under three-year-olds, which cares from children from six weeks of age and requires a high staff to children ratio. With the over three group, there can be two staff to 22 children in a room.
“Because you have to abide by the ratios, especially in your under three-year-olds, you have to have one trained staff member to every four children.
So if you’re struggling to get staff you may only be able to have eight children in that room per day.”
This difficulty of not having a strong, reliable workforce within the industry leads to a waitlist of parents who are anxious to ensure they will be able to access care when they need it.
“Some people could be on the waiting list for one to two years, so we’re actually getting children now that aren’t even born to go on the waitlist, so they’re actually on there and moving up the wait list, so 12 months down the track they may be able to get a spot.”
The roll out of three-year-old kinder in 2022, which delivers two years of universal funded Kinder in 21 locals in Victoria, has taken some of the pressure off PIELC staff and parents’ access to care for their toddlers.
“The over threes, we still do have a waitlist but that has softened slightly since the roll out of three- year-old kinder. We opted to go straight to the 15 hours for three-year-old kinder over two days. That allows families to work or study two full days, so they don’t need childcare on those days, and we are free, so it’s more cost effective for families.”
Despite the pressures the industry faces Karen is positive and said it’s a very rewarding industry to get into.
An interim report from the $10.8 million inquiry will be presented to the Treasurer by 30 June 2023, and the final report by 31 December 2023.
