Ideas@TheCentre
Child Care Reforms Fail Flexibility Test
By boosting child-to-staff ratios and lifting the qualifications of staff, a federal government proposal to change child care regulations aims to provide a higher level of care and an educationally-focused curriculum.
Advocates say child care should be about quality early childhood education and not simply a babysitting service. Detractors say prices will rise and argue that parents should have more freedom to choose a child care arrangement that suits them.
This type of child care regulation makes sense if we assume that most kids attend long-hour centre-based day care. But new ABS data released last week shows that only 22% of kids aged 0-12 years attend formal child care, and of these only 10% spend 30 or more hours per week there.
This means that the government is promoting a one-size-fits-all approach to child care, which reflects the experience of very few kids.
It is well established that the early years of a child’s life are the most important developmentally and in laying the ground for future learning. However, the evidence doesn’t unequivocally point to high quality day care as the best place for this: many studies have found that spending time with a parent (or another relative or friend) is as good or better.
Some parents who work long hours would undoubtedly want an early childhood education centre with all the bells and whistles, but others who use child care for only a few hours a week may prefer a lower cost service and are happy to forgo the educational component.
Others still might wonder why all the subsidies are directed at centre-based child care when they prefer to use a nanny or perhaps the retired person next door.
This diversity of experience should guide future policy making. If child care is to be subsidised by government, then the policy aim should be to give parents more, not less, flexibility when deciding child care arrangements.
Jessica Brown is a Policy Analyst at CIS.
