A practical vision for early childhood education and care

Excerpts from the report:

PwC brought together some of the leading experts in Early Childhood from around the world and challenged them through multiple meetings over a six month period to identify the vision for the future in ECEC in Australia.

Participants were invited to join the group on the basis of their expertise rather than as representatives of particular interest groups or government departments. All discussions were conducted under the Chatham House Rule.....

This paper, "A practical vision for early childhood education and care" is the result of the workshops and discussions carried out by this group and supporting research by PwC.

While there will clearly be a journey to take to arrive at a position where we have an integrated environment across both education and care, we know that putting the child at the centre is essential, and this has been a foundation in the development of this vision. PwC and all of the participants hope that this paper will contribute a vision and a road map for Australia so that future generations of children may benefit from an integrated system of education and care.

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Recommendations:

* The Government should drive quality improvement, particularly through expanding the number of qualified "early childhood professionals", including a call for a system for "registration" of early childhood teachers to provide a platform for developing a strong profession.
* The Government should use public funding to ensure universal access to quality services, so that "cost is not a barrier" to any child or family.
* The Government should use public funding to promote "a unified system" of care and education.
* The Government should increase public investment in the sector "to reflect the recognised value of ECEC services."