I rise in support of the two bills before the House and particularly to speak to the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2009. This bill introduces very important reforms to Queensland’s child-care sector. The key reforms will ensure more accountability across the child-care sector through enabling the publication of certain information about child-care services that do not comply with the act. The bill proposes that people will be able to check a website to find out whether their local child-care service is meeting its obligations. Any person will be able to check the website and find out whether their local child-care service has failed to meet the legislated standards for child care in any way that is serious or more than minor in nature. As a result, parents will be in a better position to make decisions about which child-care service they ultimately choose to provide care for their child. The types of child-care services that will be subject to this new publication framework are licensed centre based services, such as kindergartens, limited hours care and long day care; all home based child-care services, that is, family day care; and stand-alone care services, where care is provided to not more than six children of which not more than four children are schoolchildren.
Information that will be published includes the name and address of the child-care service, except for stand-alone services which will only include the name that the service is conducted under; details about the enforcement action that was taken; the reason enforcement action was taken; and any action the person must take or has taken to remedy the problem.
The Bligh government is committed to reforming the early childhood and care sector in Queensland. We are delivering on our election commitments to ensure universal access for all 3½- to 4½-year-olds. Early intervention is key to switching on young minds to give our children a flying start for school and for life. We are investing up to $300 million in establishing an extra 240 kindergarten services across Queensland to cater for approximately 12,000 children not currently attending any early childhood education and care centres.
The Pine Rivers electorate has an estimated population of children from zero to four years of age of almost 2,000, of which over 400 are four-year-olds or in the eligible kindy cohort. We have four kindergartens and 11 long day care centres servicing the area from Strathpine to Dayboro. I have visited many of these services and they are doing a fantastic job with their young charges.
As part of Queensland’s strategy for achieving universal access to kindergarten, long day care services will be supported to embed an approved kindergarten program delivered by a qualified teacher in their services. A new Queensland kindergarten funding scheme will be gradually introduced from 2010, with up to 100 long day services able to access this funding from 2010. Details of this new funding are being finalised and will be released shortly.
The Minister for Education has a Kindergarten Implementation Reference Group, which was established in December 2008 and which meets regularly. This reference group has representatives from across the early childhood sector including independent and Catholic education, C&K and long day care centres, and representatives from employer and union authorities. The focus of this group has been to provide advice and information to the minister through the Office for Early Childhood Education and Care to inform the rollout of Queensland’s strategy for achieving universal access for 3½- to 4½-year-old children to an early learning program for 15 hours per week across the state by 2014.
This reference group also provides the opportunity for the sector to exchange information and views on a variety of topics including the state and national early childhood reform agenda standards; workforce and performance measurement issues; workforce planning and other emerging issues and trends. I have been fortunate to meet this reference group and appreciate the depth of experience that it contains and its goodwill in assisting government to analyse and implement early childhood educational reform.
The other significant reform contained in this bill is the proposal to enable the Queensland Studies Authority to develop, approve, purchase, revise and accredit kindergarten guidelines. The Queensland Studies Authority is ideally placed to develop the kindergarten guidelines, as it already has substantial expertise in curriculum development and experience in working across education sectors. The kindergarten guidelines will set clear expectations for children’s learning, as well as age-appropriate teaching practices. They will also include a key focus on early literacy and numeracy skills, which as we know will develop across the years and will improve the outcome for all students. The guidelines will therefore provide a firm foundation for future learning and schooling outcomes as well as boost the delivery of quality early childhood education in Queensland.
The Queensland kindergarten guidelines will also complement and align with the national Early Years Learning Framework-known as the EYLF-released by the Council of Australian Governments on 2 July 2009. By enabling the Queensland Studies Authority to develop the kindergarten guidelines for use by Queensland child-care services, services will be well placed to comply with the national Early Years Learning Framework.
I am also pleased about the other amendments in this bill which will enable Queensland to take advantage of opportunities to generate additional revenue by enabling students in overseas countries to study the Queensland senior curriculum and have the chance to receive Queensland senior school qualifications. Queensland’s senior school curriculum is highly regarded in the international market. Overseas schools have expressed a desire to deliver it to their own students, in some cases preferring Queensland’s curriculum over what is available in their own countries. The bill facilitates this, but it goes further. It also enables students at overseas schools to become eligible to receive Queensland senior school qualifications such as the Queensland Certificate of Education.
Where a school meets and continues to meet certain benchmarks, it is only fair that eligible students at those schools should also receive the same Queensland senior school qualifications that their counterparts in Queensland receive. This supports Queensland Smart State initiatives to broaden Queensland’s engagement with the world through education and training. I commend the minister for bringing these bills to the House and for the hard work that he, his department and his staff have done. I commend the bills to the House.
