Childcare accreditation - how do you ensure quality?
With about 383,000 children in long day care centres across Australia, childcare is a hot topic. Macquarie University research is examining the relationship between regulation and quality care.
Parents have had much to think about over the past few months with heated debate in the media surrounding quality standards, and the adequacy of both our national child care accreditation system and the NSW Children's Services Regulation.
Macquarie University PhD student Marianne Fenech is conducting Australian Research Council funded research on how early childhood professionals perceive the regulatory environment impacts on their professional practice and the provision of quality care. Together with supervisors Jennifer Sumsion and Joy Goodfellow, Fenech has conducted research with university qualified teachers working in long day care in NSW.
"Practitioners overwhelmingly support regulation; they believe children have the right to be protected from substandard care," says Fenech. "However, they see key problems with both the Regulation and accreditation.
"The Regulation is not perceived to be in keeping with current research. For example, whilst it stipulates a 1:5 teacher to child ratio for children under two, international research shows that a ratio of at least 1:4 is conducive to quality care," explains Fenech. "Certainly centres have the option of operating above regulation standards, but they are not obliged to. So regulations can be seen as targeting the lowest common denominator."
Child care professionals interviewed by Fenech also believe that the accreditation system is not strong enough as there is limited recognition and acknowledgment for the high quality work being done. Previously, centres were accredited for a one, two or three year period, depending on their level of quality. Today, all centres are required to go through the process every two and a half years.
During the accreditation process, child care centres must undertake a self study which covers seven quality areas including: staff relationships with children and peers; partnerships with families; programming and evaluation; children's experiences and learning; protective care and safety; health, nutrition and wellbeing; and managing to support quality. These areas are assessed according to 35 principles and 708 indicators. Each quality area receives a high, good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory ranking. Centres, however, only need a minimum composite rating of satisfactory to be accredited.
"I think the system is very simplistic," says Fenech. "It promotes itself as a quality assurance system but this is a misnomer. 96.5 per cent of centres are accredited but there is a vast difference in the quality of those centres. I don't think parents have the knowledge to ask what ranking the centre received. Rather they ask whether the centre is accredited or not."
Findings and recommendations from the study are being disseminated to relevant government bodies. As well as recommending specific changes to the Regulation and accreditation systems, Fenech is highlighting other key barriers to the effectiveness of these regulatory systems.
"At the end of the day, when you have a workforce that is poorly paid, overworked, suffering from a shortage of qualified teachers, and is comprised of 85 per cent of workers with less than three years' experience, regulation can only do so much to facilitate quality care".
For further information contact Marianne Fenech: marianne.fenech@aces.mq.edu.au