Industry insights on skills needs
The Children’s Education and Care IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast suggests the top priority skills for the sector are all soft skills, ranging from teamwork and communication through to stress tolerance and flexibility. The top five identified generic skills are:
- Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN) (Foundation skills)
- Learning agility / Information literacy / Intellectual autonomy and self management (adaptability)
- Communication / Virtual collaboration / Social intelligence
- Design mindset / Thinking critically / System thinking / Solving problems
- Customer Service / Marketing.
According to the job vacancy data, the top requested skills by employers in the sector were communication skills and building effective relationships. The most advertised occupations were Early Childhood (Pre-primary School) Teachers followed by Child Carers. The top employers were Goodstart Childcare Limited, G8 Education Pty Ltd and Guardian Early Learning Group.
The Children’s Education and Care IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast, affirms that educators play a key role in supporting the social, emotional, physical and educational needs of infants and young children in various early childhood settings. Children are a vulnerable group in society and quite often people working in the Children’s Education and Care sectors are in a position to identify concerns and to work with families, allied health professionals and broader groups within communities with respect to sensitive matters which affect children’s health and wellbeing. This means that emotional intelligence and ‘soft’ skills, in addition to strong communication and the ability to engage with children, have always been critically important attributes among workers in the sector.
The above Skills Forecast summarises the challenges which need to be addressed in the sector as:
- Government policy/legislative framework reviews and modifications
- The attraction and retention of staff
- The challenges faced by regional and remote communities
- The need for diversity and variance in perspectives
- The need for ongoing professional development.
The Children’s Education and Care IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast also states that the Children’s Education and Care (CEC) sub-sectors are all experiencing skills shortages with their current workforce. Skills gaps identified represent a combination of technical and 'soft skill' areas, with examples including:
- Digital literacy and computer application
- Language, literacy and numeracy (LLN)
- Communication (to engage with families, work peers, allied health professionals, etc.)
- Business skills (in particular for Family Day Care providers, to become adept at understanding the liabilities and responsibilities, including risk management, of running a small business)
- Problem solving
- Leadership of, and within, work groups
- Reflection.
Reflection is a particular skill area that has been raised during the update work of the CEC Training Package. Terminology and associated practices have implications for the skills acquired and used by educators throughout their careers. Reflective practice is increasingly recognised as an essential skill area for educators to possess, as it is considered highly effective in supporting children's advanced learning and development. Industry has particularly voiced that 'critical reflection' is a high-level cognitive skill that needs to be learnt and developed over time with practical experience.
The above Skills Forecast also draws attention to an area for possible future development – the emerging need for national Training Package Products that address two key leadership skills areas. Firstly, there is a growing awareness of the importance of management skills for those in senior positions in Children’s Education and Care services. These include finance and administration and, particularly, skills needed for the management of staff. Secondly, every service under the National Quality Framework (NQF) is required to have a designated Educational Leader, and there is an emerging need for education and training with a focus on pedagogical leadership. This could lead to an Advanced Diploma qualification with two alternative streams: managerial leadership and educational leadership.
Staff retention is a significant issue within the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector. There is competition between long-day care services and preschools/schools to attract and retain teachers. Preschools/schools typically offer teachers higher salaries, shorter and more consistent hours, more leave entitlements and a professional status. As a result, many ECEC teachers leave the long-day care sector due to relatively low wages, longer hours, low professional status and difficult work conditions (i.e. both physically demanding and stressful). The Children’s Education and Care IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast cites a recent Australian study that found one in five educators plan to leave their job within twelve months due to low pay, feeling undervalued and an increase in the amount of time spent on paperwork. Cited reasons for low pay in the ECEC sector include: a high proportion of female workers; dependency of educators on modern awards that set minimum standards of pay and conditions; and various funding models that operate in the sector. The current low level of remuneration makes it difficult to retain highly qualified staff. Furthermore, the unfavourable work circumstances can act as barriers to educators investing additional time and resources into upskilling/professionalisation.
The issue of staff turnover can act as a disincentive to employers to invest in workplace training. However, ongoing professional development opportunities are necessary for quality provision of ECEC services. ECEC is recognised as a profession that requires strong and broad-reaching relationship-building skills as well as specialist skills and knowledge which support children's development and learning. Quality professional development learning opportunities are required to ensure workforce skills remain updated and relevant to the workplace environment, and to ensure that industry is kept abreast of evidence-based theory and practice. Additionally, professional development must continue post-qualification to support the embedding of learning. The National Quality Standard outlines the requirement for continuous improvement through the implementation of 'effective self-assessment and quality improvement processes'. Well-trained and qualified ECEC educators equipped with the relevant knowledge, skills and attributes provide quality outcomes for children. The NQF supports professionalisation through its updated and nationally consistent qualification requirements and references to capability, leadership, teaching and learning. The promotion of qualification pathways and professional learning expectations can also contribute to improved professionalisation in the industry.
The Children’s Education and Care IRC’s 2020 Skills Forecast (abridged annual update) includes information about staff shortages. The longstanding staff shortages in this sector make it difficult for some providers to meet the National Quality Framework (NQF) staffing requirements, which are essential to continuing to lift quality in the sector. Recent changes to the legislation make it more imperative that greater action is taken to address these shortages so that policy objectives related to quality can be realised. From 1 January 2020, providers of Long Day Care services and Preschools/Kindergartens need to have a second early childhood teacher (ECT) or, alternatively, a 'suitably qualified person', when 60 or more children of preschool age or under are being educated and cared for. The Diploma qualification, in conjunction with a primary or secondary teaching qualification and Australian teacher registration (Accreditation in NSW) is recognised for this purpose. Services located in New South Wales were unaffected by these changes, as additional ECT staffing requirements have been in place for several years. In some jurisdictions, transitional provisions have been extended multiple times in response to ongoing workforce challenges and concerns.
The Children's Education and Care sector is facing a shortage of professionals with leadership skills to fulfil leadership and management roles. There has been an established awareness of the importance of management skills for those in senior positions in Children's Education and Care services, and requirements vary based on the structure of services and how responsibilities are assigned within an organisation. In addition, there is now a growing emphasis on operational leadership skills for all job roles within services. Contrasting to finance and administration, and skills in leading staff, there is a value being placed on the ability of people working effectively as part of a team, exercising leadership in the day to day routines and logistics to enable the smooth operation of services. An additional type of leadership in the sector is pedagogical leadership. Every service under the NQF is required to have a designated Educational Leader, and there is an emerging need for education and training with a focus on the development and application of these skills. SkillsIQ and the Children's Education and Care IRC will continue to liaise with the sector to measure the need and nature of such future training products.
The OECD report Good Practice for Good Jobs in Early Childhood Education and Care, confirms that around the world, as in Australia, recruiting and retaining skilled staff is a long-standing challenge for the ECEC sector. OECD countries are increasingly demanding that ECEC staff be highly skilled and highly qualified, but a combination of low wages, a lack of status and public recognition, poor working conditions, and limited opportunities for professional development mean that recruitment and retention are frequently difficult. This report considers: What can countries do to build a highly qualified and well-trained ECEC workforce? What is the best route to increasing staff skills without exacerbating staff shortages? How can countries boost pay and working conditions in the context of limited resources? Building on past OECD work on ECEC, and drawing on the experience of OECD countries, the report outlines good practice policy measures for improving jobs in ECEC and for constructing a high-quality workforce.
The OECD report Building a High-Quality Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce: Further Results from the Starting Strong Survey 2018, looks at the makeup of the ECEC workforce across countries, assessing how initial preparation programmes compare across different systems, what types of in-service training and informal learning activities help staff to upgrade their skills, and what staff say about their working conditions, as well as identifying policies that can reduce staff stress levels and increase well-being at work. The report also looks at which leadership and managerial practices in ECEC centres contribute to improving the skills, working conditions and working methods of staff.
Diversity is a characteristic of early childhood education in contemporary Australia. Children engaging with early childhood contexts come from a range of social, economic, cultural and ability groups, and bring with them a considerable variation in life's experiences. Opening Eyes Onto Inclusion and Diversity in Early Childhood Education argues that effective early childhood educators understand that creating an inclusive learning environment that is responsive to a diverse range of characteristics and needs, can be a challenging and overwhelming endeavour with sometimes limited or underwhelming results. This chapter explores what educators can do to create inclusive early childhood contexts that provide children and families with the opportunity to develop understandings of difference and diversity and what skills they need to achieve positive outcomes.
The policy proposals presented by the Mitchell Institute in Every Educator Matters: Evidence for a New Early Childhood Workforce Strategy for Australia, cover four stages of an ECEC career, from making the decision to enter the ECEC sector, through to ongoing professional learning and career development. They include:
- A national approach to achieving professional pay and conditions for all early childhood educators, including co-investment models between governments and employers
- A national campaign to promote ECEC careers, emphasising the benefits of ECEC for children's learning and development, and for Australia's economic productivity
- High-quality education and training for all educators, including better consistency in vocational education and training and university courses that prepare teachers to work with all age groups
- Additional support to beginning educators, as well as to those who may require additional support with English language, literacy or numeracy to reach their full potential
- New national standards for educator wellbeing to ensure that ECEC services look after educators' physical and emotional health, and set clear expectations for educators' workloads
- Investment in professional learning, leadership development, and specialisations (such as working with vulnerable communities), to enable educators to pursue rewarding careers.
The Framework to Inform the Development of a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Early Childhood Strategy has been created to inform renewed and dedicated efforts to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have the best start in life, wherever they live in Australia. One of the key focus areas is: Access to affordable, quality early childhood education and care services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families. Progress in Closing the Gap on this measure will be reflected by increases in ECEC attendance and Australian Education Development Census (AEDC) outcomes. In 2018, 84.6% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were enrolled in a preschool program the year before full-time schooling, compared to 88.8% for non-Indigenous children. The Closing the Gap target is to increase the percentage to 95% by 2025. In 2018, 70% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were enrolled in early childhood education attended at least 600 hours of a preschool program before full time schooling in a year, compared to 82.7 % for non-Indigenous children. The Community Child Care Fund (CCCF) is part of the Child Care Safety Net. Grants awarded under the CCCF support child care services to address barriers to participation, particularly in disadvantaged communities, provide sustainability support for child care services experiencing viability issues and provide capital support to increase the supply of child care places in areas of high unmet demand.
The South Australian Education Workforce Insights report states that in South Australia children can attend preschool from age four, a service offered by government kindergartens and through private providers such as Early Learning Centres and long day care centres. The importance of early education has become a focus and education standards and quality frameworks are demanding increasing qualification attainment and professionalism from those educating children. This has increased the demand for qualifications in the preschool workforce and, coupled with projected increases in childcare centres operating in South Australia, indicates a future shortage of childcare workers, centre managers, and early childhood educators. An expected 2,000 additional early childhood (pre-primary school) teachers, child carers and childcare centre managers will be needed. Industry calculates that meeting this need will require individuals completing about 1,000 more certificate III and 1,000 more diploma qualifications.
Set Up for Success: An Early Childhood Strategy for the ACT has been designed to build on and guide the delivery of high-quality ECEC, and support workforce participation for families, particularly for women, with an over-arching goal to achieve an education system that sets all children up for success. From an educator perspective, the Phase 1 strategy will focus on immediate challenges such as developing a workforce strategy, improving coaching, mentoring and training, and improving pathways into the profession.
The report of the Inquiry into Early Childhood Engagement of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities provides a vision to enhance the diversity of the workforce in Victoria and improve its capacity to engage culturally diverse children and families. A key area of reform discussed throughout the inquiry related to ensuring that the early childhood workforce is responsive to the needs of culturally diverse communities. The Committee heard evidence on a number of workforce themes. The first related to specific professional development activities that should be widely delivered to ensure staff have the skills and capacity to form effective and trusting relationships with culturally diverse children and their families. There is a need for cultural competency training for staff working in early childhood services to remove barriers for culturally diverse families, improve engagement and enhance communication. There is also a need for training in trauma-informed care in mainstream services due to increasing numbers of communities of refugee and asylum seeker background settling in Victoria.
Secondly, there is a need to expand the number of bicultural and bilingual workers in the sector, given their key role in bridging the gap between families and service providers. There are opportunities to grow the bicultural and bilingual workforce in rural and regional areas of Victoria, with increasing settlement of culturally diverse communities in those areas. The Committee heard that one of the key barriers to entry into the workforce for culturally diverse communities is attaining the requisite Australian qualifications and accessing ongoing mentoring and support. The Committee heard of difficulties faced by individuals, including parents themselves, in having their overseas qualifications and experience recognised in Australia's ECEC sector.
The Government Response agrees with the Committee that targeted action and investment is needed to ensure that the ECEC workforce responds to the needs of culturally diverse communities. A number of new and expanded initiatives and responses are being developed to address the projected kindergarten workforce supply needs related to the roll-out of Three-Year-Old Kindergarten across Victoria, and to respond to the need for a more culturally and linguistically diverse workforce. The roll-out of universal, funded Three-Year-Old Kindergarten will mean the creation of more than 6,000 teaching jobs across the state. More than 4,000 new teachers and 2,000 new educators are needed over the next 10 years to meet the anticipated demand. The Department of Education and Training recognises that increased participation and representation by multicultural communities in the early childhood workforce would better reflect the diversity of Victoria's population. Communications and engagement activities target multicultural populations, promoting early childhood education as a rewarding career, and motivating prospective candidates to consider a career as a kindergarten teacher. The introduction from 1 January 2020 of Free TAFE for Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care, and for the Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care, as well as scholarships for further study and training, is opening up opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse people to become teachers and educators at kindergartens.
In 2022, three-year-old children across Victoria will be able to attend at least five hours of funded kindergarten a week. This is a significant milestone on the road to a 15-hour per week, state-wide program for Victorian children by 2029. It will be the teachers and educators who will make it a success. The Victorian Government has a broad-reaching strategy to support the attraction, retention, and quality of the early childhood workforce. This includes investment in a $174.2 million workforce package to attract and retain staff and support high-quality kindergarten programs. The policy paper Working Together to Build Victoria's Early Childhood Education Workforce, invited all sector stakeholders to be part of the next stage of Victoria's early childhood workforce strategy. The new strategy, including an engagement summary, will be released in the second half of 2021.
The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) Submission to the Victorian Early Childhood Workforce Strategy reiterates that building a sustainable and diverse early childhood education workforce is integral to achieving the government and sector's vision of ensuring every Victorian child has access to two years of high-quality early learning. VCOSS argues that workplace culture is important as there is a direct correlation between investment in professional development (for example, leadership training), staff wellbeing and staff tenure. The sector will continue to lose educators and teachers unless there is greater investment in their wellbeing and professional development. The Victorian community is increasingly diverse and early childhood educators and teachers are dealing with greater complexity. Pay and conditions currently do not appropriately reflect this complexity, for example, the amount of time and the skills that staff require to manage relationships with families and manage families' expectations. This is exacerbated by gaps in pre-service training that mean staff are entering the sector not sufficiently prepared to respond to children and families who have multiple and complex needs. Where staff have access to professional development, there is often insufficient time and support to develop and put into practice their new skills (for example, to undertake complex communication and engagement support with children and families). There are inequities in support available to VET-qualified early childhood educators compared to Bachelor-qualified early childhood teachers. For example, all staff can benefit from mentoring which can help to embed knowledge and develop their practice. However, VET-qualified early childhood educators do not enjoy the same access to Victorian Government mentoring initiatives as Bachelor-qualified teachers.
It has been demonstrated time and again that the quality of the early childhood and care sector is inextricably tied to the quality of training provided to those who work in it. The article To Support a High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce We Must Rebuild With TAFE, argues that a strong TAFE sector is the only way to provide the necessary vocational education and training at a scale that fills workforce shortages with skilled and capable educators in the early childhood sector. Restoring funding to TAFE will create a triple dividend for Australia: a skilled and capable workforce to address current and future regional shortages, increased workforce participation to boost the economy and improved early learning outcomes for Australian children.
Based on recent conversations with employers about their recruitment plans, Hays has developed a list of The Most In-Demand Skills for 2021. The skills in greatest demand in this sector are:
- Centre Directors who hold early childhood teaching qualifications – due to the increasing number of childcare centres
- Early Childhood Teachers – the low salaries associated with this role continue to add to the shortage of Early Childhood Teachers
- Diploma qualified OOSH Coordinators – regulatory changes necessitate a higher ratio of diploma qualified staff per centre. While some employers offer on-the-job traineeships, many instead want Coordinators who are already diploma trained.
The Early Learning and Care Council of Australia (ELACCA) media release in September 2021, The Class of 2021 Urged to Grab a Future-Proof Career in Early Learning, announced a new national campaign that seeks to entice secondary school students into the early learning and care sector. Across YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, the 'Big Roles in Little Lives' campaign promotes the incredible impact early childhood professionals can have on children. The campaign encourages teenagers to consider a career that is future-proof, with the opportunity to guide the learning and wellbeing of the next generation of Australians. The Australian Government has forecast that demand for early learning and care will create an extra 23,900 jobs for early childhood professionals by 2025. This includes educators at every level, from Certificate III graduates up to degree-qualified Early Childhood Teachers, so now is a great time for young people to consider enrolling at a vocational education provider or university to study early childhood education in 2022.
