Policy
ACA NSW puts forward immediate ECEC solutions in pre-budget submission
Freya Lucas
Mar 18, 2021
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The New South Wales branch of the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA NSW) has made a submission to the NSW Government ahead of its annual budget.
“A State of Possibilities – Volume 1: Immediate Solutions”, is described by ACA NSW as “quite different” to the recently released Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement of the Review of the National Quality Framework (NQF).In ACA NSW’s Volume 1 submission, there is a focus on what the Group calls “legacy issues”, and on offering practical solutions for NSW-based long day care services, including:
- be nationally consistent with all other Australian states by removing the requirement for a 3rd and 4th degree-qualified early childhood teachers (see Regulation 272);
- be nationally consistent with all other Australian states by having 1:11 ratio for children aged 3-6 years old (see Regulation 271);
- make persons taken to be early childhood teachers to automatically be like all other Australian states (ie amend Regulation 242(3));
- make all NSW-based services to be NSW Payroll Tax exempt by virtue that they are educational institutions;
- restore NSW Start Strong funding for all eligible children in long day care services to be at least the national average per child allocated for Universal Access funding; and,
- allow NSW to trial Queensland’s long-standing “crib break” (see Regulation 299C).
Other recommendations for the NSW Government include:
- emulating the Victorian Government’s model of helping to pay the gap for eligible parents’/guardians’ children during their year-before-school; and,
- establishing an appropriate income test eligibility framework for parents receiving the free preschool funding for 2021.
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