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ABC News
4 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Childcare, early education advocates sound alarm as development census results decline
Nearly half of Australian children are not considered on track with their development, according to the latest Australian Early Development Census (AEDC). The teacher questionnaire looks at children in their first year of school, and found just 52.9 per cent were on track in all five development areas surveyed in 2024. The results are an improvement on the first census taken in 2009, but a deterioration from the last survey in 2021. The percentage of children considered to be facing "significant challenges" to their development increased marginally in all areas, between 0.2 and 1.5 per cent. Chief executive of Early Childhood Australia Samantha Page told RN Breakfast the COVID-19 pandemic had played a major role in the latest result. "Play-based learning is really important for developing social competence and emotional maturity." Both those areas are assessed in the AEDC, along with physical health and wellbeing, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge. Ms Page stressed it was possible for developmentally vulnerable children to catch up, but that it took "a lot of resources". She said she supported the federal government's goal of a universal early education system, but the focus must be on disadvantaged children. Children from First Nations, non-English speaking, rural and remote, and low socio-economic backgrounds recorded worse results overall in the AEDC. The Labor government has promised to build more childcare centres in areas of need, and reforms to childcare subsidies, regardless of how much parents work or study, come into effect in January. "I think a country as well off as Australia really should have more than just over half of its children developmentally on track in the first year of school, and we really would like to see a concerted effort in response to this," Ms Page said. In the regional Victorian city of Ballarat, CEO of the Eureka Community Kindergarten Association (ECKA) Jo Geurts said the AEDC results could not be explained by the pandemic. "Early childhood was one of the only services that continued to operate all the way through COVID … in our region," she said. "I think it's more than that." She pointed to long waiting lists for health services, and workforce pay and training as areas in need of more investment. "The development of the brain in children in the years before they're eight years old is dramatic … so we need really high-quality educators," she said. Ms Geurts would like to see a shift in the language around the industry. "Yes, it's about workforce participation, particularly for women, but it's also got to be very much about children in a rich learning environment." Nearly one-quarter of Australian children live in a "childcare desert" — where three or more children compete for a place. That includes parts of the Wimmera, where early childhood advocacy group By Five works to close childcare gaps, and improve health outcomes by linking families with specialists and bringing allied health workers into schools. By Five executive officer Jo Martin said support must be tailored to community needs, and should be more flexible across departments and governments. "It's really important that we don't let … borders get in the way of getting the best outcomes for children," she said. Louise Middleton is a maternal child health nurse working in north-east Victoria, and has seen firsthand the challenges for people living more than 100 kilometres from key services. She told ABC Statewide Drive that developmental delays were exacerbated by long waiting lists. "If we [maternal child health nurses] pick up any issue with the child for their school readiness, we are absolutely unable to get them assessed in a timely manner," she said. "It's taking six to eight months just to get their in-home assessment, and then it's taking another six months for them to get NDIS or any other referrals and assistance." The federal and Victorian education ministers have been contacted for comment.
The Age
03-05-2025
- General
- The Age
Kids watching TV at childcare raises parents' ire
Another mother in Melbourne's eastern suburbs with a two-and-a-half-year-old, who spoke with The Age, said an educator would often just be holding an iPad showing YouTube for kids to watch, without engaging. 'It was at the end of the day during pick-up, so I just thought she was over it by then. But it happened often,' the mother said. An Albert Park mother of two said she was 'a bit disturbed' after visiting a family daycare centre to find a row of children listlessly watching ABC Kids. Another said when her children were sometimes watching Bluey on an iPad when she arrived to collect them from their Montessori centre, which prompted her to wonder why she paid for childcare when her children could be watching TV at home. 'I don't want to blame educators who do it, it's not the educator's fault, they are operating in a system that's not supporting them,' the mother said. Early Childhood Australia (ECA) chief executive Samantha Page said her organisation had no data on how widely screens were used passively, but said there were many active, creative ways to use digital technology in early childhood that complemented the curriculum. The ECA has developed guidelines for the use of digital technology in childcare settings, and calls for a 'contextual approach' to using screens. Paediatrician Nitin Kapur said that educators actively engaging alongside screens in an educational context would not be regarded as passive screen time. 'What we don't want is that [the child] is given one hour of screen time at the kindy or the daycare, and then they go home and have more exposure,' he said. '[It] should be clearly told to the parents that the child had half an hour on the screen or one hour, so that then parents make an informed decision of should they be giving any more time.' Kapur referred to a 2023 Japanese study that shows children who spend more than the recommended amount of time watching a screen have reduced cognition. Australian Childcare Alliance president Paul Mondo said that in his experience, TV was not used in early learning services. 'It would be very uncommon for regular TV or movies to be shown to children during their time in early learning settings. However, there may be circumstances where TV programs are used in the context of the classroom's educational programs,' Mondo said. He said screens and technology could be valuable tools for learning purposes, to spark conversation or illustrate lessons in the curriculum. Professor Hayley Christian from the Kids Research Institute Australia said young children should only engage with screens with an educator or parent. 'Young children need many bursts of energetic play throughout the day, so dancing along to The Wiggles or copying the movements of animals on a large screen can help support learning activities while also enabling them to be active and develop their fundamental skills,' Christian said. South Melbourne mother Rosie Cuppaidge, who has a 14-month-old daughter Ione, said she would prefer no television at early learning centres and that screen use should be discouraged among children. 'There's enough going on at childcare that screens shouldn't be needed,' she said. 'But on occasion it doesn't hurt, and I trust the educators know what they are doing as professionals.' Loading Associate Professor Catherine Hamm from the University of Melbourne said digital technologies were like any other learning resource in the classroom. 'You would consider the ways in which you used it like you would any other piece of equipment,' Hamm said. 'Are you just putting the children in front of a digital device and doing something else, or are you collaborating with them? … You're using it as you would read a book or some other piece of equipment in your classroom.' Hamm believed there were other ways children could have downtime, rather than watching a screen. 'If it is a long day – some children are there for 10 hours – you know there's beautiful yoga and lots of different ways that I think downtime can be offered,' she said. 'I don't think that there's a place for ... consuming digital stuff in a passive way.' Hamm said there were no guidelines around telling parents if their children had been watching screens. 'Different centres might have policies about that. I think that's becoming more common for centres to have a digital technology policy,' she said.
