Closing the Gap Report 2024 shows performance divergence for ECEC targets

The Closing the Gap Annual Report 2024 highlights that the two key outcomes and targets focused on early childhood education and care (ECEC) service provision are showing divergent trends as the countdown to 2025, the target date for achieving goals, approaches.

 

“The report celebrates the enduring strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in sustaining the world’s oldest living cultures while acknowledging the lasting impacts of colonisation and subsequent government policies,” Commissioners Natalie Siegel-Brown and Selwyn Button highlighted in the Forward.

 

Some targets are on track to be achieved, such as healthy birth weight, pre-school enrolment, and land and sea subject to Indigenous rights. 

 

However, the Commissioners noted that outcomes are worsening in four areas: 

 

• children removed into out-of-home care by child protection systems, 
• the proportion of children who are developmentally on track, 
• the rate of people taking their own lives and; 
• the number of adults imprisoned.

 

The Closing the Gap Annual Report details progress on the nineteen socio – economic outcomes across health, education, employment, housing, justice, safety, land and waters, culture, language and connectivity for First Nations people. 

 

The ECEC sector is included in the national agreement that makes up the Closing the Gap implementation plan via Outcomes 3 and 4 both of which speak directly to the provision of ECEC services, with outcomes, for First Nations children. 

 

Outcome 3 – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are engaged in high quality, culturally appropriate early childhood education in their early year 

 

Target – By 2025, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in Year Before Full time Schooling early childhood education to 95 per cent.

 

Status – On track with 101.8 per cent of First Nations enrolled in a pre school/kindergarten 

 

In 2022, 99.2 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the Year Before Full time Schooling were enrolled in a preschool program, a substantial increase from the baseline of 76.7 per cent in 2016.

 

Enrolment rates exceed 100 per cent for the national figure and some jurisdictions because the numerator and denominator come from different data sources and are based on different assumptions. 

 

Outcome 4 – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children thrive in their early years 

 

Target 4 – By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains of the Australian Early Development Census to 55 per cent. 

 

No new data is available to measure progress on this outcome. The most recent data is from 2021 which stated that nationally 34.3 per cent of First Nations children commencing school were assessed as being developmentally on track in all five Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) domains, a decrease from 35.2 per cent in 2018 (the baseline year). 

 

Status – Off track with 34.3 per cent well below the target for 55 per cent. 

 

The Commonwealth Government has outlined a range of new policies including affordability and accessibility measures which, taken together, are expected to positively impact outcomes in the First Nations community for their children. 

 

To read this year’s Closing the Gap report click here.