Imagine the scene, somewhere in Macquarie Street, Lisa Bryant writes. Prue Car’s Chief of Staff is in a huddle with the other office staff. They are literally drawing straws, from the bundle in his (her?) hand. The loser is the one who must tell the new NSW Minister for Education and Early Learning…
...that no matter how bad it seemed from opposition, now the actual responsibility for governing NSW is theirs, it’s clear that the NSW early education and care sector is in a much worse state than they had believed.
They must tell her that it is obvious that the NSW Department of Education doesn’t quite realise (care?) how bad it is in the sector. That the $22 million they had promised from opposition to fix the workforce issues ($9 million in scholarships, $10 million in professional development leave, and $3 million on research to work out how to fix the workforce pipeline) was a case of too little, too late. That the 150 new preschools that they were going to build would probably never happen, because even if they could be built, there was literally no hope of ever staffing them.
They need to tell her that directors are leaving everywhere, as the pressure of trying to ensure they have enough staff to meet regulated ratios and qualifications every day has defeated them. That educators are quitting for other jobs. For any job where they are not pressured to come in when they are sick. For jobs where the money was even a little a bit better (and that is in effect almost all jobs!). That directors of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services in country towns are despairing because every teacher on their casual list was choosing to work in schools where the pay was better, way better, than what they could get in almost every education and care service. That soon the public would know how bad it was, because services were having to cap numbers, close rooms and ask families to not bring children in because the service just couldn’t meet regulated staffing numbers, no matter how hard they tried.
And they must tell her that despite all the noise, the outgoing government had made about their BIG plans for universal early education in NSW, it was all just froth and nonsense because the Coalition hadn’t ever realised how bad the workforce issues were. How the previous government’s workforce plan was little more than empty words and pretty pictures.
No quick fix
They need to work out how to tell her that there is no quick fix solution either. And how it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
And they need to work out how to tell her that it sounds like the real issue is pay and workloads. How NSW preshool teachers, uniquely, unlike their counterparts in other states and territories, can earn up to 30 per cent less than teachers in schools. How educators in NSW (like educators in the rest of Australia) earn so little that they would be better off in retail jobs. How because of staff shortages teachers are not able to take lunch breaks or their non-contact time for programming/documentation.
And they must tell her that the only solution is to front up some money for wage increases or get their friends in the new Federal Labor Government to do it so the workforce shortages will decrease.
How do you reckon it will go down? Will the Minister be surprised? Or was it what she was hearing in Opposition anyway? Do you think she will believe it? Or will she instead believe the incoming documentation that the department had prepared for her as new Minister, which barely touched on these issues, given they are so seemingly remote from the reality on the ground?
Shielded from reality
The IEU is aware that sometimes ministers are shielded from reality by their staff and by their department heads. So just in case nobody pulls the short straw, or pulls it and fluffs the message, we are going to say it loud and clear.
Fix wages in the early education and care sector before you don’t have one. Fixing wages will fix the workload issue but in the meantime tell your department to get real and drop expectations.
Fix wages in the early education and care sector before services close because they can’t recruit the staff they must have under regulations to operate. And before more teachers and directors quit from the work overload.
Fix wages in the early education and care sector before every other sector in NSW has a workforce crisis because without this workforce, the education and care workforce, their workforces will be crippled.
Fix wages for early childhood teachers, especially because the quality of early education that children receive in early education and care centres, in preschools, depends on the quality of the individuals in those roles. And the quality of early education that a child receives in the early years will impact on their ability to succeed in later education.
Are you hearing this Minister Car? You need to fix early childhood teacher wages. Fund wage increases or persuade the Federal Government to do it. And do it now. And in the interim fix the work overload.
Of course, there are other things you can do to help the sector immediately. Like getting the department to understand and act on the fact that the sector and everyone in it is stressed beyond belief. Like getting the department to stop treating ECEC services as the enemy and to start working co-operatively with them to improve quality. Like learning a lot from the amount of professional development and support the Victorian Government gives their new graduate early childhood teachers and their more senior counterparts. Free mentoring and coaching? Bring it on.
Other things would help too - like simplifying the preschool funding system and stopping making it more and more complex with every far too frequent change. Like making it equitable between services. Like not telling families that preschool will be affordable when it can’t be because of inadequate funding. Like making everything simpler – for families, the sector, and the workforce, because this is in your control and simplification doesn’t have to cost money.
And like admitting that your promise to build more preschools was a dumb promise in the face of workforce shortages. And reneging on it. Loudly and publicly. And dropping the trial of preschools operating even longer hours than now. Because teachers can’t just keep extending their face-to-face hours on a politician’s whim.
Because sometimes (always?) ministers need to take bold steps. Like saying ‘Our ECEC sector is on the verge of collapse. And we are going to concentrate on making sure that that doesn’t happen on our watch because we understand how very, very important it is. To NSW. But mostly to the children in NSW. Because if we can’t give our youngest children what they deserve, what kind of a government will we be’?
Lisa Bryant is a freelance writer and early education consultant