ACA NSW puts forward immediate ECEC solutions in pre-budget submission

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.