Childcare boss blasts bureaucrats’ focus on ‘sustainability’ lessons

Lessons on ‘environmental issues’ are now compulsory in childcare centres, but industry experts say they are a bureaucratic exercise and push up costs.

Childcare costs are soaring due to a chronic shortage of staff, a problem compounded by lingering international border issues, while government officials are hounding centres to educate children on “sustainability”.

Australian Childcare Alliance NSW president Lyn Connolly blasted the constant imposition of red tape on centres while ratio changes introduced 10 years ago were making it almost impossible to run a centre without constantly jacking up costs.

“The focus should be on a child’s development and their progress,” she said.

“Instead the National Quality Standard and the assessment and rating system makes you talk about the worm farm, the chickens and recycling

To achieve a good rating under the Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority system, inspectors must be able to see “documentation of children’s learning about environmental and sustainability issues” and that childcare staff have taken steps to “increase their awareness of the impact of human activity”.

Ms Connolly said the introduction of changes to staff ratios in 2012 meant centres had to increase fees over the past decade.

“I’m not against these ratio changes, but these changes forced fees up enormously and there has been no measurement on the development of the children to see if there has been any development benefit,” she said.

Childcare worker Hannah Joy with Skyla, 2, (left) and Naira, 1, at Clovel Child Care & Early Learning Centre in Wentworthville. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“The ratio changes have been going for 10 years and there is no evidence at all, no system of measurement to see if it has made an ounce of ­difference to the children’s development.”

Finding staff is also an issue.

Ms Connolly said that she short-listed 25 people for interviews recently, but only two turned up. One was a man who said that he was attending so he could qualify for his welfare payment.

Border closures meant there were still issues with staffing, while rent increases and food price hikes had also pushed up costs, Ms Connolly said.

The cost of childcare increased by 8 per cent in Sydney in the final quarter of last year compared with 6.4 per cent over the same period nationally, according to the Consumer Price Index statistics.

The average cost for a day before rebates was $169 in the city, $117.65 in Parramatta and $163 in Mosman, according to comparison website Care for Kids.

Originally published as Childcare boss blasts bureaucrats’ focus on ‘sustainability’ lessons