Community Child Care Center Director Rebecca Stiles is close to breaking point.
Key points:
- Childcare centers in Australia are experiencing high staff turnover
- Low wages have been recognized as a problem in the sector
- There are also calls for the government to restructure the sector, as more than 70 percent of service providers are for-profit operations.
After 27 years in the industry, she is now contemplating the once unthinkable: joining the childcare and education exodus.
“This is really heartbreaking, to think this is going through my head, to go somewhere else,” she told 7.30.
The reason for their growing stress is staff shortages at their community center in Hillbank, Adelaide.
“Sometimes I wonder how I cope,” she said.
“I do spend most of my time looking at my list on my desk, wondering what I’m going to do this afternoon or the next day.”
It’s a similar story across the country.
“It was critical before COVID,” said Elizabeth Death, chief executive of industry body Early Learning and Child Care Australia (ELACCA).
“Now it’s even more serious.”
There is broad agreement on the root cause of the problem: wages in the sector are too low.
Working in the industry requires at least a diploma or a bachelor’s degree, but many childcare educators earn little more than the minimum wage of about $24 an hour.
Helen Gibbons says early educators have “voted with their feet”, leading to huge vacancies in centers across the country. (ABC News/7.30)
“You can have a bachelor’s degree and work in an early education setting, and the exact same degree will earn you at least 30 percent more than if you worked in a school,” said Helen Gibbons, director of early education for the U.S. . Workers Union (UWU).
“It’s just obscene.
“They have done it [early educators] they have really voted with their feet over the last six months.
“I don’t think there’s a center in the country that isn’t currently advertising for an early educator.”
Brisbane early childhood teacher Samira Shire said she felt undervalued.
Brisbane preschool teacher Samira Shire has been in the industry since 2014. (ABC News: Chris Gillette)
“Our wages are one of the lowest in the country — I can’t say it’s the lowest, but it’s really close,” he said.
“What bothers me when I read comments from the community is always how people think we’re not qualified, how people think that only a percentage of a center works as qualified educators and the rest work unqualified, that’s not the Box.”
Impact on children
High staff turnover can have a devastating effect on the quality of care and education, according to developmental psychologist Karen Thorpe of the University of Queensland’s Brain Institute.
“Some of our research that we’ve recently reported shows that emotional attachment, and that emotional support and emotional quality of care, have effects on children’s language development, but we’ve also made some data links to show that it has effects up to secondary education,” he said.
Karen Thorpe says early educators are “really important” in a child’s development. (ABC News: Michael Lloyd)
Professor Thorpe said there was an overwhelmingly strong case for the Federal Government to invest more money in early childhood care and learning to improve pay and conditions.
“We need to advocate more strongly that these are not just day care workers,” she said.
“They are seriously important educators at the most critical point in human development.”
Measures to improve remuneration
As well as providing more federal funding, one of the obstacles to improving pay rates in the sector is the current structure of Australia’s industrial relations system, according to gender pay expert Meg Smith of the University of Western Sydney .
“There’s only been one successful equal pay order in the last 20 years, and I think that speaks to some of the challenges,” he said.
However, Dr Smith said she was encouraged by the Albanian government’s pledge to strengthen the Fair Work Commission’s gender equity section and supporting legislation.
“I’m optimistic if these changes are to be implemented and have multiple track applications of the Fair Work Act, I would be optimistic that there is capacity for change,” he said.
The Albanian government has pledged $5.4 billion to make childcare more accessible. (ABC North Queensland: Nathalie Fernbach)
The UWU has organized a nationwide shutdown of the early childhood education and care sector on September 7 to highlight these pay issues and is also calling for more substantial restructuring of the industry.
A recent Australia Institute report found that 77% of service providers are private for-profit operators, one of the highest rates among OECD countries.
“Achieving the goal that the ECEC [Early Childhood Education and Care] in Australia it becomes an essential service, like Medicare, it should be provided more on the basis of public need than private profit,” said Andrew Scott of Deakin University and co-ordinator of the Institute’s Nordic Policy Center from Australia
“To maintain adequate public spending on childcare and prevent further increases in parent fees in Australia, there will need to be less reliance in the future on paying subsidies to private for-profit operators.”
UWU’s Helen Gibbons said there was a “progressive commercialisation” in the sector.
Australia has one of the highest rates of for-profit early education operators among OECD countries. (ABC News: Chris Gillette)
“We’ve seen an increasing number of for-profit providers (private companies and private equity) making a lot of money from taxpayers,” he said.
“And it’s going to benefit us, it’s not going to go to the little kids… [it’s] we are certainly not going to early educators.
“It’s a crazy system.”
ELACCA’s Elizabeth Death disagrees.
He said Australia had strict quality controls that allowed a mixed market to work effectively and the government’s immediate attention should be on fixing the staffing crisis.
“I think the biggest factor here is not trying to turn the industry around at a time when we have a labor crisis. [and] at a time when our children need the best and most consistent educational care.”
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