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Smart Queensland - Early childhood

2020 Target: All children have access to a quality early childhood education, so they are ready for school

Measure: provision of early childhood education by a qualified teacher (source: Office of Early Childhood Education and Care).

Lead agency: Office of Early Childhood Education and Care.

Queensland's early years education today

While 97% of Queensland children now participate in a full-time preparatory year before Year 1, fewer children attend kindergarten in Queensland than any other state in Australia.

There are currently 53,000 three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half year olds in Queensland.

Only 29% of this age-group attend a quality early education program, delivered by a qualified teacher. This compares with more than 85% across the rest of the nation.

The majority of the children enrolled in these programs attend a Queensland community kindergarten while around 7% attend a child care centre.

A further 48% are enrolled in long day care or occasional hours care programs not delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher.

The remaining 23% of children are believed to be cared for by parents, grandparents, family day care or other informal services.

Achievements since September 2007

Began delivering a Preparatory year of school to a full year group of students for the first time in 2008.
Started construction on Queensland's first one-stop-shop for early childcare services at Caboolture and started the refurbishment program for the Nerang facility.

Challenges

Facilities: meeting this target will need a significant investment in new and expanded kindergartens to accommodate the 12,000 children not currently accessing early education services.

Regional access: to reach families in rural and regional communities innovative early education services such as mobile kindergartens and virtual learning will need to be explored.

Teachers: sufficient numbers of four-year qualified early childhood teachers will be needed to staff an expanded early education service across both kindergartens and child care centres. Attracting and retaining qualified teachers to work in rural areas and child care centres will be a challenge.

Achieving the target

The Queensland Government is taking its first steps towards creating world class education and training by undertaking a major expansion of kindergarten services in Queensland.

The commitment includes:

New kindergarten services: the Queensland Government will build an extra 240 kindergartens to cater for the 12,000 children not accessing any early education services.

Incentives for child care: the Queensland Government will work with the Australian Government to provide better early childhood education in child care centres.

Support for families in need: the Queensland Government is developing integrated Early Years Centres where parents can access early education services, child care, child health services, parent programs and other family support in one location. New facilities for two services in Caboolture and Nerang are under construction with a further two centres planned for Browns Plains and Cairns.

Dedicated early years office: a new Office for Early Childhood Education and Care will be established, reporting directly to the Minister for Education, Training and the Arts, to bring early years and child care services under the one umbrella. The office will manage the roll-out of the new kindergarten services and support the child care sector.

We need the Australian Government to support our efforts by providing appropriate funding to deliver this massive expansion in early childhood education services.

We need our early education partners, including the child care sector and state, Catholic and independent schools to work with us to provide the best early education services for Queensland children.

We need individual Queenslanders to give their children the best start by enrolling them in a quality early childhood program.

Tomorrow's Queensland