Getting all children off to the best start in life: The Big Five Challenges in Education in a Changed World

In 2015, an influential article argued that five big challenges must be addressed before real progress could be made towards improving the quality and equity of Australian education. Six years – and a global pandemic – later, experts from education research and practice revisit those challenges in an exciting webinar series.

In our fourth webinar we ask, what does it take to get all children off to the best start in life? Overwhelmingly, research shows that high-quality early childhood education and care is an integral part of developing the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for children to flourish now and to transition into school successfully. Learning and development outcomes in the early years are part of a lifelong educational continuum. But what does ‘high quality’ ECEC look like and how do we ensure all children are able to access it? And how do we address the equity issues we know exist in many countries, including Australia?

Join the discussion with ACER Senior Research Fellow Dr Dan Cloney, Mary-Ruth Mendel, Co-Founder and Executive Director, The Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation, and Myra Geddes, General Manager Social Impact, Goodstart Early Learning, moderated by Dr Catherine McClellan, 4-5pm AEST.