A&R reassessment rates jump to pre COVID-19 levels as overall ECEC quality touches new record

The number of Assessment and Rating (A&R) re-assessments completed by Regulatory Bodies across Australia in the three months ended December 2022 jumped to levels not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic the latest Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) NQF Snapshot has shown.

 

A total of 903 re-assessments occurred in the period, the highest level since December 2019, and a near 300 per cent increase compared to the end of 2021. 

 

The increase in re-assessments is consistent with efforts by various Regulatory Authorities to clear the backlog of services that had built up since the pandemic and is largely responsible for another increase in overall quality ratings to new record highs. 

 

As of the end of December 89 per cent of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services had received a quality rating of Meeting, Exceeding or Excellent when benchmarked against the National Quality Standard (NQS). 

 

 

lthough the broad trend has been higher across the states and territories of Australia there has been some significant variation in the degree of improvements over time. 

 

The Northern Territory for example, has increased the percentage of services rated at meeting or above the NQS over the last five years by 21 per cent, a very substantial improvement in ECEC quality ratings. 

 

However, Tasmania on the flip side, has actually seen the percentage of services rated at meeting or above fall by six per cent since 2017, having peaked at 80 per cent in 2018 and fallen to 73 per cent currently.

 

 

Victorian improvements also appear muted but it’s important to note that Victoria has always had structurally low rates of quality across its network of ECEC services leaving less room to record improvements. 

 

In 2017 83 per cent of its services were rated meeting or above, the highest across the states, and in 2022 91 per cent are rated meeting or above, still the highest. 

 

Across the four main settings (Long Day Care (LDC), Family Day Care (FDC), Preschool and Outside School Hours Care (OSHC)) the trend has been the same with the percentage of services rated working towards reflecting improvements, albeit varied, across the board. 

 

 

FDC continues to carry the most services rated working towards, and preschool settings the least. Both OSHC and LDC have demonstrated significant improvements over time as well. 

 

Looking more specifically at the LDC setting the majority of the improvements in quality are coming from the private for profit segment leading to a narrowing in the gap of working towards services compared to the not for profit community and other governance types. 

 

 

Although it is encouraging to see the LDC for profit community working hard to improve their quality levels by reducing the percentage of working towards services it must be noted that overall the not for profit community and other governance still maintain significant overall quality advantage given their larger proportion of services rated excellent or Excellent as measured by the NQS. 

 

To read the Q4 2022 NQF snapshots, as well as all past snapshots, visit the ACECQA website.