Should early education and childcare in Australia be free?
Video clip at right: On June 8, 2020, the federal Education Minister, Dan Tehan, announced that Australia's free childcare scheme would end on July 12.
Introduction to the media issue
What they said...
'Evidence...shows the earlier children can access quality early childhood services, the better their longer-term learning outcomes are likely to be.'
Jen Jackson, Education Policy Lead, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University
'Now there is a growing collection of evidence that suggests just the opposite: that early childhood education actually harms children'
Cathy Gulli. Canadian educational journalist
The issue at a glance
On June 8, 2020, the federal government announced that it was moving forward the date on which it would cease to fund free childcare in Australia. Free access to childcare had been announced on April 2, 2020 and was originally intended to be in place for three months.
The program was prematurely ended on July 12, 2020.
The reason for the cessation of the program was that it was judged to have succeeded in its objectives. It had been put in place to support the childcare industry to survive the initial impact of COVID19.
Numbers of children attending childcare dropped significantly in the early stages of the pandemic. After free access had been in place for three months and with the virus deemed to be being brought under control, child numbers attending centres had grown to a point where the government no longer believed free childcare to be necessary.
The decision to end free childcare has met with a mixed response. Parents, some economists and many early childhood educators have seen it as a mistake, arguing that free access should remain in place for the benefit of children and parents. Childcare providers have largely welcomed the change as they considered the terms under which the government had funded fee-free childcare to be inadequate in the long-term.
