Caution urged on “unfair” childcare stereotypes as Guardian warns against ownership labels in quality and safety debate

Guardian Childcare and Education has urged governments not to treat ownership type as a shortcut for judging early childhood education and care (ECEC) quality and child safety. In its Senate inquiry submission, the provider argues reforms should focus on measurable safeguards, consistent regulation and stronger screening systems across the whole sector.

Guardian Childcare and Education has cautioned against reducing ECEC policy debate to a for-profit versus not-for-profit binary, as the Senate Inquiry into the quality and safety of Australia’s early childhood education and care system continues.

The inquiry was referred on 25 August 2025 and is due to report on 10 March 2026.

In Submission 72, Guardian Childcare and Education warns governments against being “caught up” in what it describes as a “concerted” campaign against for-profit centres, arguing the narrative could result in families having fewer quality options.

The submission also claims quality varies across the system, stating there are “both excellent and poor providers” in for-profit and not-for-profit parts of the sector.

Guardian contends that quality assessments should be grounded in outcomes and performance, not ideology.

Guardian describes ECEC as highly regulated “for good reason”, while warning that over-regulation and disproportionate responses can distract centres from core responsibilities.

One governance claim in the submission is that public penalties for minor breaches of internal above-minimum standards could discourage services from setting stronger internal expectations in the first place.

The submission also argues that regulators should avoid judging providers purely on raw incident-report volumes, noting reporting behaviour can differ between providers and service sizes.

Guardian calls for a national Working with Children Check and a national educator register that is accessible to employers, arguing these measures would “genuinely make all centres safer”.

The submission proposes the register include employment history and, at minimum, employer-substantiated allegations of child harm or gross misconduct, and warns against a model restricted to after-the-fact regulator investigations.

Guardian argues headline comparisons using National Quality Standard (NQS) ratings can mislead when service context is ignored, particularly when comparing sessional preschools with long day care settings operating longer hours and serving broader age ranges.

The submission cites a comparison in which community preschools have “almost 50 per cent” of services rated Exceeding, compared with 26 per cent for community long day care centres, attributing the gap to the complexity of delivering high quality across longer hours and wider age profiles.

It also claims Exceeding ratings are far less common in the first five years of operation, and notes that more than 90 per cent of centres in their first five years are for-profit, which it says can skew ownership-based comparisons.

Regardless of ownership type, inquiry attention is sharpening expectations on systems and evidence: screening, supervision, incident response, governance oversight and regulatory consistency.

Guardian’s submission adds another pressure point for leaders: how quality and safety data is interpreted publicly, and whether compliance settings encourage transparency and improvement, or drive risk-avoidance behaviours.

Reference

Guardian Childcare and Education, Submission 72: Quality and safety of Australia’s early childhood education and care system.