Quality Early Education for All

The suite of practices may include widespread implementation of the evidence-based Abecedarian approach
and/or wrap-around models that research indicates should involve greater attendance hours, high child-staff
ratios, a strong learning focus with individualised learning plans, connections with other services – including
health, family support, cultural workers, early intervention, mental health and other specialist services – and
active outreach strategies combined with strategies to build strong partnerships with families.
This approach would dramatically accelerate the availability of high-quality early education for the children who
need it most. This strategy must be universal, aiming to reach all 3-4 year old children within the target
community, rather than continuing to meet only a fraction of the children who would benefit.
Recommendation 3: Quality early education for all children
Ensure the NQF is achieving its objectives and is appropriately resourced to do so, and that all services are
Meeting the NQS, at a minimum, by mid-2017
All children must have access to quality early education opportunities and the NQF is a key strategy for achieving
this.
Given that the NQS represents a minimum standard, it is essential that all services currently rated not meeting
the NQS be required and supported to be on a rapid path to meeting the standard. This will require assessment of
the 3905 services not yet assessed, more rapid re-assessment for the 3526 services now rated as Working
Towards the standard and more frequent assessments across the board.
For the next scheduled review of the NQF, it is important to consider the extent to which the it is meeting its
objectives, particularly:
whether it is functioning adequately to support a continuous quality improvement approach;
determining whether it is adequately resourced and sufficiently responsive;
strategies to increase the proportion of services exceeding the standards and receiving an excellent
rating; and
the models of professional learning, local collaboration and cluster management that are most effective
in lifting standards and supporting the provision of quality learning environments.
Recommendation 4: A national data strategy and coordinating agency
Deliver a national early childhood data strategy and coordinating agency that establishes the information
infrastructure needed to drive policy and practice improvement into the future
The recent announcement of a Productivity Commission inquiry into the Education Evidence Base is a welcome
opportunity to build the data and information infrastructure needed to make informed investment decisions into
the future.
Investment in high-quality, systematic, outcomes-focused data collection will yield dividends for many years to
come and should form the basis of a national early childhood data strategy. As the Grattan Institute note,
targeting funding to where it is most needed relies on fine-grained data and linked datasets that track progress
over time (Goss and Sonnerman, 2016).
There are four key issues for consideration in the development of a data strategy:
Administrative data: considering how the quality and reach – and therefore impact – of existing
administrative data can be strengthened. For example, generating more frequent and accurate enrolment
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