Victoria extends quality lead with 94% of services rated meeting or exceeding the NQS

Victoria has increased the percentage of services rated as meeting or exceeding the National Quality Standard to 94 per cent, the highest amongst all states and territories across Australia the latest NQF Snapshot shows. 

Currently, 93 per cent of its 1,944 long day care services and 98 per cent of its 1,245 kindergartens are rated as exceeding or meeting, highlighting the degree of quality as measured by the Victorian Department of Education consistently present across the state. 

New South Wales and Queensland also recorded high numbers at 90 per cent and 89 per cent respectively with strong performances in both states from the LDC and preschool settings. 

Although overall percentages are still relatively high there is a gap of around 5 per cent between the remaining states and territories and NSW and QLD with the former recording between 81 per cent and 84 per cent of all services rated meeting or exceeding. 

What is notable about the quality trends across the states is not necessarily the current levels but how they have changed over time, with NSW the stand out improver over the last five years (with 16 per cent more meeting and exceeding services), followed by Western Australia with a 13.3 per cent improvement.

The improvements, particularly in NSW, are more than likely the results of significant and sustained policy measures designed to support services of a weaker quality to improve over time. On a five year view, these initiatives have yielded real results. 

That being said, although quality improvement has been marked over the course of the last five years, reassessment rating trends do suggest that it is becoming less common for services to achieve a boost rating post reassessment.

Currently, around 20 per cent of services being assessed experience a boost in quality rating, a proportion that is certainly at the lower end of the last seven years of data.

There are a number of factors that could be driving this trend, including the lasting impact of more rigorous requirements to achieve or maintain an exceeding rating introduced back in 2018, but the most likely being that the number of quality improvement candidates, particularly at the working towards level, are getting smaller and smaller as overall quality rises.

To read the latest NQF Snapshot please click here.