More than 1400 early childhood roles vacant across Victoria

A crisis in the early childhood sector means Victorian families are missing out and children are suffering because they’re not getting a “continuity of education”.

Childcare centres and kinders are closing classrooms and reducing their operating hours due to staff shortages, as more than 1400 early childhood roles sit vacant across the state.

Employers are on the hunt for kinder teachers, early childhood educators, administration staff, managers and even cooks to fill hundreds of positions available on the Department of Education’s Early Childhood Jobs website.

More than half of the advertised positions are in Greater Melbourne, with 779 roles available across local government areas including Brimbank, Glen Eira, Hume, Mornington Peninsula and Whittlesea.

Meanwhile, the remaining 636 positions are scattered across the state’s regions including the Goulburn, Barwon, Central Highlands, Mallee, Wimmera Southern Mallee and Loddon Campaspe areas.

There are hundreds of roles advertised on the Department of Education’s Early Childhood Jobs website. Picture: iStock

Fewer than 400 of these positions are teacher vacancies.

Despite the large number of available positions, just one financial incentive was offered on the website for an early childhood teacher (kindergarten) role at Federation University in Churchill.

The $21,000 grant was a Department of Education location incentive to encourage educators to move to the Gippsland Regional Area.

Community Child Care Association executive director Julie Price said children and families were suffering as a result of the shortages, particularly those who attended long-term childcare.

“Many services have had to reduce their capacity or close rooms down because they are unable to care or educate students on certain days because of the teacher shortages,” she said.

Children and families are suffering as a result of the shortages. Picture: iStock

“That has a real impact on children because they’re not getting the continuity of education they deserve.”

Ms Price said teachers who were currently employed were missing out on planning days or were unable to get additional staff to support students with special needs due to the educator shortfall.

“We believe teachers and early learning staff are undervalued compared to other professionals and they deserve to be paid for the role they love doing. Love doesn’t pay the rent and the bills,” she said.

Australian Childcare Alliance president Paul Mondo said it was critical to the “long-term success” of the sector that teacher supply continued to grow.

“Workforce challenges continue to present themselves in our sector,” he said.

“It’s not the same problem everywhere but making sure we continue to grow the supply of early childhood teachers is critical to the long-term success of our expansions into early learning education.”

Opposition early childhood and education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said accessible and affordable childcare options remained “out of reach for too many young families”.

“Failure to attract and retain the early childhood workforce Victoria needs is yet another real-world consequence of Labor’s financial mismanagement and will mean higher prices and less flexibility for families,” she said.

But a Department of Education spokesman said it had seen a 50 per cent increase in early childhood teachers and educators in funded kindergarten programs across the state.

“We have awarded more than 4000 scholarships to support more Victorians to become early childhood teachers,” he said.

“Our large and growing workforce has made it possible for almost 96 per cent of Victorian children to attend kindergarten in the year before school in 2023, and we are well ahead of schedule in the roll out of Three-Year-Old Kindergarten.”