Dodgy qualifications reducing child care standards
New qualification requirements for early childhood education and care providers were supposed to raise the level of quality care being offered by people working in the sector.
However, recent media reports suggest that the new rules have led to a proliferation of sub-standard qualifications, which leave graduates unfit for the job they are supposed to be doing.
The new qualifications requirements mean that everyone working in child care services must hold or be actively working towards a Certificate III in Children's services.
However a number of child care centres have told the ABC that they have started unofficial blacklists of training providers they will not use because graduate quality is so poor.
Child care operators told the ABC that some training providers operate a 'tick and flick' service where students effectively buy their qualifications.
Speaking to the ABC Simon Rosenberg who runs four child care centres through Northside Community Service in Canberra said there’s not enough regulation of providers.
"There's a range of cowboys in the industry, who provide what's really a quick and dirty service," he said.
"There are some training providers who will do a Cert III in six weeks, some that will do online options only, have very limited supervision, very limited workplace support and very limited contact with the centres that the trainees are working in."
Mr Rosenberg told the ABC that operators were supportive of moves to properly train childcare workers but there was not enough regulation of training standards.
The significant consequences resulting from poorly trained early childhood education and care graduates include reduced employability, sub-standard levels of care and a watering down of the effectiveness of the government’s new standards.
In Australia the quality of training providers is regulated by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). The increased demand for training in ECEC and the surge in demand of providers has again highlighted existing concerns about the quality of training available in this sector and as a result ASQA is mid way through a review into early childhood development workforce training which is due to be finished by the end of the year.
Speaking to the ABC child care worker Rhiannon Tones, 21, said she almost left the child care industry after falling prey to a poorly-run course.
While studying a Diploma of Early Learning, students in her course were told teachers had forgotten to teach half the content and the year-long course was extended to two years.
"Over half the class dropped out because of their disappointment," Ms Tones said.
"It was the final straw after months of issues. I would ask a question and it would be two or three weeks to respond.
"Over 50 per cent of the classes were actually cancelled or arranged for another time.
"When I stepped in I realised I didn't have the knowledge most other diploma students have because I wasn't given the knowledge."
Ms Tones has now restarted her diploma with a better provider.
Melbourne childcare worker Erin Staid said her Certificate III course involved rewriting slabs of text from a text book onto worksheets.
"We'd be assigned some homework, which was 'here's your textbook, here's your notebook' and just asked to fill it in, not even asked to articulate it in our own words. Just 'write what's in the book'," she said.
"I just felt that… I didn't know if my work was being looked at, our work certainly wasn't graded.
"When I went on to do my diploma at a well-known college I felt really behind the rest of my class."
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