By Jamie Salter
Cardinia Lakes Early Learning Centre (CLELC) is just one of many early childhood education centres pushing for improved conditions for Australian childcare workers.
CLELC staff were already members of the United Workers Union before they joined the Thrive By Five campaign – an initiative of the Minderoo Foundation aiming to make Australia’s early learning childcare system high quality and universally accessible.
CLELC owner Tamicka Hicks said the goal of the Thrive By Five campaign hit home for her and her staff.
“If educators get paid a higher wage parents will have to pay more because their fees will go up and families already struggle with fees they have to pay,“ she said.
“They really want to focus on quality early childhood education and a lot of childcare workers are leaving the industry because of low pay.
“It’s good to have an organisation separate to a union movement to be backing the sector and knowing quality education in the first five years of life is crucial.“
According to an Australian Early Development Census in 2018, nearly 21 per cent of children entered prep with one or more developmental vulnerability.
Ms Hicks said children were suffering as a result of a fractured sector.
“If we don’t get it right in early childhood, it’s just a snowball effect of poor education outcomes and without quality childhood educators, you’re not going to get that result,“ she said.
“We’re asking for what we deserve which we’re not getting.“
She said understanding educators pay and conditions was important and encouraged parents to join the campaign.
“The issues around kinder is becoming an international problem and some countries are getting it right but because we have such a fragmented system it makes it really hard,“ Ms Hicks said.
The Minderoo Foundation has begun a global roll out of an app for carers to share new insights from the science of early brain development, which was launched in Indonesia on Monday 21 March.
Minderoo Foundation founder Dr Andrew Forrest said the foundation was looking to achieve a global paradigm shift for children around the world.
“Every child, no matter where they live, has a right to have the best possible start to life,” he said.
“Our special focus is on communities where awareness of the importance of early childhood development is low, or where access to this information is limited, and providing them easily accessible information tailored to them.”
