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Early learning

September 2024

Pre-school children at Goodstart Early Learning in North Sydney.

Childcare must be made universal

The Productivity Commission’s review of early childcare and education is welcome. Australia needs to follow others and make childcare accessible for all.

  • Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz

April 2024

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) benefits both children and parents.

This budget boost for working women will supercharge the economy

We wilfully under-utilise 50 per cent of our economic potential, creating a national emergency we could easily solve.

  • Zoe Daniel

January 2024

Even our failures can present us with a great opportunity.

How your kids can succeed – when they have no natural talent

Not every sub-par drawing or tuneless recital is a potential masterpiece, but if your child is the next Van Gogh, you’re worst placed to spot it anyway.

  • Charlotte Lytton

April 2023

Business was hostile to former prime minister Julia Gillard’s climate plans.

Julia Gillard-led inquiry calls for three-year-olds to do preschool

A royal commission headed by Julia Gillard into early childhood education has recommended universal preschool be extended to all South Australian three-year-olds.

  • Tim Dornin

November 2022

HSC students are increasingly shying away from extension English courses.

The trouble with boys starts before they step into a classroom

Boys are behind girls academically from the get-go. And by the time they get to year 9, they have already fallen far behind their female schoolmates.

  • Julie Hare
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June 2022

Rob and Libby McLeod provide regular care to their nine grandchildren, including Joey, 3, and Teddy, eight months.

The grandparents who help keep mothers at work, but at a cost

Grandparents play a huge and often invisible role in keeping working families in paid employment.

  • Julie Hare

May 2022

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese at the Goodstart Early Learning Centre in Kalamunda, WA on Monday.

Previous childcare splurge did not encourage parents to work more

Labor’s $5.4 billion childcare policy is called into question after evidence reveals few families took up cheaper childcare after the last big funding injection.

  • Julie Hare
Cheaper childcare holds the key to productivity boost, say economists.

How the high cost of childcare holds back women and the economy

The cost burden of childcare on working women is denying the economy of a ready-made boost.

  • Julie Hare
Working families will be better off after the election no matter who wins, but Labor’s childcare policies are more widespread and generous.

Everyone a winner under Labor childcare overhaul: economists

Recent tweaks to Labor’s policy means there is not a single scenario under which families using childcare would be better off under the Coalition.

  • Julie Hare

December 2020

Teaching reading has been a pointless ideological battleground between phonics and recognising "whole words".

More class, more teaching

Education funding has been spent on the wrong things for decades. It's really time to stop.

  • The AFR View

November 2020

Australia is just below average in numeracy standards.

Why Estonia beats Australia on financial literacy

Citizens of richer countries are more likely to have bank accounts, familiarising them with some financial concepts. But some countries punch well above their weight when it comes to learning about money.

  • The Lex Column

October 2020

A five-point plan for lifelong learning

With the pandemic intensifying the loss of unskilled jobs, a major vocational education reform agenda is needed to train Australia's human capital.

  • Peter Dawkins
Schools generic

What women want out of childcare

Childcare subsidies produce neither the productivity that governments want nor the services that parents want.

  • Fiona Mueller

September 2020

'Adding value' is a new curriculum priority

Researchers at the OECD say value creation has a wide range of interpretations including economic benefits.

  • Robert Bolton

August 2020

Social infrastructure like education is heavily undervauled.

Classrooms are the key to recovery

Investing heavily in schools would be the best return on the vast amounts of money that governments are borrowing.

  • Emma Dawson
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The cost of childcare hits the lowest paid the hardest.

Why childcare must be made free

Expensive childcare is an unfair levy on jobs. And early childhood education would improve life chances all round.

  • Sam Crosby

March 2020

Clyde & Co managing partner Michael Tooma warned that schools could face claims from teachers, students or even third parties if they fail to take reasonable steps.

Schools face negligence risk from staying open

Lawyers and unions have warned schools and childcare centres may be breaching their duty of care by staying open as educators grow anxious.

  • David Marin-Guzman

January 2020

Childcare and schools supplier Modern Star is expected to be worth more than $750 million.

Navis mulls carve-up in Modern Star auction

It was Aristotle that famously said "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

  • Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Tim Boyd

November 2019

An economic argument for extending preschool to two years

Lobby groups are gearing up to ask for more early education funding.

  • Robert Bolton
In everyday life, effects that are the result of age have been attributed to birth order.

Australia fails on early childhood education

A new report shows that children who attend early learning services are much less likely to be developmentally vulnerable.

  • Tom McIlroy

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/early-learning-hzs