It’s in the DNA of early childhood professionals to be always finding new ways of lifting their game. They strive to provide the best possible education to young children and their families and seek out new professional learning whenever they can. This is despite failures by successive governments to fully acknowledge their worth as professionals.
A new report Lifting Our Game (page 7), supported in a statement by a number of influential bodies, including the IEUA, (page 10) calls for government to provide secure long term funding investment in two years of high quality early childhood education for every child. It calls for an end to piecemeal funding which leads to uncertainty in the sector. The recent Gonski: Through Growth to Achievement Report also highlights the importance of early childhood education.
The report also calls for sound investment in the early childhood workforce, and acknowledgement of the significant contribution to education made by early childhood teachers.
The IEUA is also running an equal pay case (page 7) which argues that early childhood teachers in many settings are historically underpaid because they are mainly women. A positive outcome to this case demonstrate recognition that early childhood teachers’ work is comparable to the work performed by other university qualified professionals who are more appropriately remunerated.
In Bedrock we always highlight the professionalism of teachers and commitment to keeping up to date with new developments in early education and care. This issue includes a number of articles by early childhood professionals and academics such as Associate Professor Noella Mackenzie’s piece on tablet technology use in play versus manual play (page 16) and the Queensland University of Technology study on advocacy and early childhood preservice teachers (page 20).
Politicians need to become more aware of the amount of academic rigour and research behind the everyday work of early childhood teachers and acknowledge this when making decisions about funding and workforce strategy that impact on the status of the profession.
As the statement supporting the Lifting Our Game report says, politicians, policymakers, families, community, providers and the profession need to take the next steps towards achieving the shared objective of an early childhood education and care system that truly delivers for every child and their family, now and into the future. We look forward to a ‘lift in the game’.