Early Learning Matters Week
It's #EarlyLearningMattersWeek (26-30 July 2021), and we want to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to early childhood educators everywhere who make an incredible difference in the lives of young children.
Early Learning and Early Childhood Educators Matter
As the largest provider of children’s services in Canberra, Communities@Work is committed to providing high-quality education and care to children across our Early Education and Care Centres, as well as our Family Day Care and In-Home Care services.
Since the first five years of a child’s life are the most crucial, Early Childhood Education and Care forms the foundation for a child’s social, physical, emotional, personal, creative, and cognitive learning.
Our dedicated and qualified educators go above and beyond to shape these through relationship-building, meticulous curriculum planning, and day-to-day activity and experience implementation.
We thank our amazing educators who support children in their early learning, helping them become global citizens, teaching them environmental sustainability, inclusion and diversity, collaborative partnerships, community engagement, and essential life skills including personal safety, healthy eating habits, emotional well-being, leadership skills, team-building, and so much more.
Calling on Government for Support for Educators
High-quality early learning makes a significant impact on children – not just in the early years, but throughout their lives.
A strong qualified workforce is essential to delivering quality early learning, and we are calling on the Government to provide more investment in professional development opportunities for our early childhood educators.
This Early Learning Matters Week, we are calling on the Government to provide more investment in professional development opportunities for our early childhood educators, alongside Children First Alliance.
Co-Chair of the Children First Alliance and CEO of Communities@Work, Lee Maiden said “The role of early childhood educators is crucial in the development of children. Access to ongoing professional development for our educators is key to ensuring that the Early Childhood Education and Care workforce is supported.”
In their submission to the ACT Budget, the Alliance has called for the establishment of a professional development fund, registration under the Teacher Quality Institute (TQI) for early childhood teachers working in early learning centres in the ACT and reinstatement of Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care in the Skills Capital Canberra Skills List.
It is well documented that the Early Childhood Education and Care sector is experiencing a skills shortage. In the ACT there is currently no requirement for early childhood teachers who are university qualified working in early learning centres to be registered under the Teacher Quality Institute (TQI).
This leaves early childhood teachers working in the ACT at a disadvantage to their New South Wales (NSW) counterparts, where registration is a requirement in an approved centre-based setting under the NSW Education Standards Authority.
Co-Chair of the Alliance and CEO of YWCA Canberra Frances Crimmins said “Early childhood teachers in our early learning centres are tertiary educated, just like Government preschools. Their valuable contribution to the lives of our children and our communities needs to be recognised. Providing registration for our early childhood teachers in our centres would demonstrate that we as a community value the important work they do.
The increased focus on families accessing Early Childhood Education and Care across the country, has once again shown a spotlight on the importance early childhood learning. The ACT Government’s Set up for Success: An Early Childhood Strategy for the ACT released last year includes a key foundation area of ‘Valuing educators, values children’.
Co-Chair of the Alliance, Ms Maiden said “Early childhood educators are some of the most vital workers in the country. Investing in our early childhood educators has never been more important. We look forward to working with Government to implement the workforce actions within in the Early Childhood Strategy.”
You can also read our interview with The Canberra Times on this issue here.
Watch the video below to find out why Early Learning Matters to us.