Since August, over 60 child care centers nationwide have been subjected to conditions after consistently failing to meet the minimum National Quality Standard (NQS) for child health and safety for more than seven years.
Among these, 30 centers were given a deadline to improve their standards by this month.
Currently, 19 of these centers have successfully met the required standards, one has been shut down, another awaits reassessment, and the remaining nine are collaborating with the Department of Education to determine “next steps.” These centers risk suspension or losing their taxpayer-funded Child Care Subsidy under the new regulations.
Education Minister Jason Clare emphasized that the possibility of losing funding has compelled centers to take necessary actions.
“We establish national standards for a reason,” Clare stated.
“In the case of these centers, all 60 that were put on notice had continually failed to meet these standards for seven years.”
“I think any reasonable Aussie hearing that for the first time would think ‘well if you’re not prepared to meet the standards then you shouldn’t be receiving taxpayer’s money’ and this is not an idle threat.
“The threat of cancelling the funding has forced 19 centres so far to act and if the other centres aren’t prepared to act, then the powers in the act are there to cut off their funding.”
The centres have not yet been named and parents will not be notified until the decision is finalised that the funding is to be cut.
Clare said most of the nine centres at risk of suspension were in family daycare.
Two further reforms come into effect today including a new National Early Childhood Register and mandatory safety training.
The register will include Working with Children Checks, qualifications and identifying information to make it easier to track staff across centres and jurisdictions and must be updated within 14 days whenever someone is employed or leaves a centre.
“The events that happened in Victoria last year I think remind us why a national register is important,” Clare said.
“Think about the work that the Victorian police had to do… to try to find out where that individual worked and where they thought he worked wasn’t always where he worked,” he said.
“I said at the time we should have a system that allows us to press a button so we know where workers are, where they’ve worked, the centres that they’ve been at and the states that they’ve been as well.”
Every provider has a month to upload workforce information to the register.
Also beginning today, staff and directors will have access to mandatory child safety training which they will be required to complete within the next six months.
The training is intended to give staff the skills to identify and report abuse and the grooming of children and adults.
“Of all the things we’re doing here, I really do think this is the most important,” Clare said.
“It’s the people who work in our centres who are our best assets here.
“99.9 per cent of the people who work in our early education and care system, love our kids, care for our kids, educate our kids, protect our kids and want the best for our kids.”
Centres will be able to close from 5pm several days a year in order to complete the training.
Reforms to the sector so far also include a trial of CCTV in hundreds of centres across the country and a ban on personal mobile phones in childcare centres.
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