Barrie Elvish is the Chief Executive Officer of C&K, Queensland's community run early childhood association.
Barrie began his career as a senior secondary teacher and after nine years resigned to take up a management position in the not for profit sector. Since then he has been employed in a variety of community organisations primarily in areas of organisational change, a focus of his Master's degree in Business Administration. Strongly committed to a fairer and more just society, particularly for children, Barrie is currently completing his doctorate in business researching mergers and acquisitions in the not for profit sector.
Early Childhood Education
Barrie Elvish - CEO - C&K
Both the federal and state governments have early childhood education and care as a high priority on their respective reform agendas.
The Rudd Government has made a commitment to provide all four-year-olds with 15 hours of university qualified teacher led pre-prep programs on a play based curriculum. In addition, the Prime Minister has committed his Government to provide access for Indigenous children as top of the agenda.
In support of the federal agenda the Bligh Government has committed to the construction of 240 new kindergartens in areas of high demand throughout Queensland; they are designed to provide places for the 12,000 children who do not currently attend either a C&K service or long day care centre and will be primarily built on school sites or by expanding capacity in existing C&K kindergartens.
Although there are currently approximately 54,000 four-year-olds in Queensland, only 30 per cent of them have access to a bona fide pre prep program, the majority enrolled at C&K kindergartens. This is by far the worst participation rate of any state or territory in Australia and is the legacy of previous state governments, from both sides of politics, neglecting the children of this state.
The successful implementation of the reform initiatives is reliant on a number of critical factors. Firstly, there is a dire shortage of qualified early childhood teachers Australia wide and particularly here in Queensland. The lead time of four years university study will by definition restrict how quickly the program can be rolled out in this state.
Secondly, and linked to this issue, is the fact that teachers are employed by constantly changing volunteer management committees in kindergartens and do not receive the same pay and conditions as their colleagues in the school sector.
This can make it hard to attract and retain teachers, especially in Queensland's regional and remote areas where these inequities will have to be addressed to ensure staff stability and continuity. As an aside, the few teachers employed in the child care sector receive significantly less in terms of salary and holidays but work much longer contact hours.
Thirdly, with the average centre being more than 40 years old, many established kindergartens are in need of considerable repairs and maintenance. The transitory nature of management committees and high costs of operating a kindergarten often mean that little or no forward capital expenditure planning is undertaken.
Centres have limited access to finds to carry out general repairs and maintenance let alone major works or extensions. Although the Gambling Community Benefit Fund is a welcome source of support for services the amount of government capital funding available is a meager $200,000 per year to be shared by 360 kindergartens.
Funding secured from the latter source must also be matched dollar for dollar by the service themselves, a cruel irony for those kindergartens most in need, especially in the regional and remote areas where costs of materials and labour are even higher and fundraising more difficult.
Whereas the current economic climate puts a question mark over all government spending, the early childhood reform agenda will hopefully remain a priority, in fact to some degree they are interrelated.
Both federal and state governments are doing everything possible to minimise the negative impacts of the global financial crisis. Rudd's fiscal stimulation package includes large amounts of money for the nation's schools, funds that can be used for general maintenance, building school halls and playgrounds etc.
Given that the universal 15 hours of pre prep will be provided in most C&K centres in Queensland it makes economic sense to make some funds available to the centres now. Similarly, as much as I welcome the additional 240 kindergartens, it seems a little shortsighted to not commit some dollars to maintain the existing services as well. For either government the delays in works will only lead to higher costs later.
Making money available to the community kindergarten sector now will not only generate local employment and put money into local communities but also maximise funds that are available through the fundraising efforts of past management committees, resulting in even more money being returned to the community.
The financial benefits of investing in early childhood education and care are well proven and widely accepted by government. It is imperative as we look to a world post recession that the future of our children, the nation's most valuable resource is not jeopardised.
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