NQF and Policy Changes
Quality
Q4 2018 ACECQA snapshot shows more centres re-assessed as exceeding
Jason Roberts
Feb 08, 2019
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The latest ACECQA snapshot report, released yesterday in relation to Q4 2018, showed 270 or 26 per cent, of all services that were subjected to a reassessment by their state or territory regulatory authority between October and December 2018 either maintained their prior rating of exceeding or saw an improvement from a working towards or meeting rating to exceeding.
This improved trend in improved quality performance suggests that the new guidance changes introduced by ACECQA at the beginning of 2018 are becoming increasingly well understood by the sector as they prepare their services ahead of reassessment and that the guidance changes have aided in returning the percentages back to levels recorded prior to the changes being introduced.
This compares favourably with the July to September 2018 period which saw only 19 per cent of services reassessed gain or retain an exceeding rating and with the April to June 2018 period, which saw only 12 per cent of the services reassessed retain or attain an exceeding rating.
This improved trend in improved quality performance suggests that the new guidance changes introduced by ACECQA at the beginning of 2018 are becoming increasingly well understood by the sector as they prepare their services ahead of reassessment and that the guidance changes have aided in returning the percentages back to levels recorded prior to the changes being introduced. Other highlights from the report include:
- 94 per cent of all services have now been assessed and 45 per cent of services that have been assessed have now been reassessed
- Private for profit services continue to account for 47 per cent of all services
- For profit services still have the highest percentage of working towards centres with 28 per cent, although the percentage continues to drop.
- Services run by councils have the highest percentage of exceeding centres at 56 per cent.
- In terms of settings preschools have the highest percentage of exceeding rated centres at 59 per cent, followed by Long Day Care at 30 per cent, Outside School Hours Care at 16 per cent and Family Day Care at 14 per cent.
- South Australia recorded the highest proportion of exceeding centres with 48 per cent of all centres rated exceeding whereas Western Australia now has the highest proportion of working towards centres in the country after the Northern Territory saw improvements.
- Quality Area 1 continues to have the most services receiving a rating of Working Towards, with 16 per cent of services struggling to meet this criteria.
- Services had the most success in meeting Quality Area 5, with only 5 per cent of services being rated as working towards.
- Quality Area 5 was the area where services received the most exceeding ratings at 39 per cent, although this is 1 per cent lower than in the previous period.
- Quality Area 2 has the least exceeding ratings at 22 per cent.
The March 2019 ACECQA snapshot is expected to be released in or around the first week of May 2019.
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