Care For Kids CEO says early childhood teachers deserve greater support

The head of a leading Australian early childhood education service says we need to lift recognition and remuneration for those teaching in the sector.

Ask any working family in Australia about their stressors and I guarantee you sourcing and affording childcare will be in the top three.

For transparency, as the CEO of Care for Kids, I serve three million parents searching for childcare each year as well as the services providing it, and my political interest lies with whoever can take the pressure off a bit.

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We must remember we have some of the best-trained educators in the world and some of the best educator-to-child ratios globally. The government has introduced measures to make sure of it.

We need to strike a balance where parents can afford the service, children are taken care of physically, emotionally and educationally while operators (many who are family businesses) make a return on the equity they have risked.

Care For Kids CEO Ash Sachdev.

While I’ve applauded the government, the answer to easing the problems still rests with them.

Instead of trying to restructure the industry, we need to invest in obtaining and retaining passionate educators. The increase in subsidy funding is always appreciated but needs to be simplified and modernised. Think Medicare – it’s good, but not great, with a greater divide between public and private.

The only solution I see is to increase award payments which subsequently will increase the cost of care daily. Working class families need to have better child care subsidy support from the government.

Income thresholds need to lift significantly to make it more appealing for single income families to get back to work. In the long run, this will be beneficial for families, beneficial for the economy and of course the children immersed in early education.

We need a greater understanding that early childhood education and care educators are some of the hardest working people in Australia and they’re not getting the recognition or the remuneration they deserve. Even through two years of Covid shutdowns, they showed up every day to educate our children.

There is always hope and with the right direction and our investments into the sector, there’s no reason why early childhood education can’t thrive like the children that attend.

Ash Sachdev is CEO of careforkids.com.au and toddle.com.au