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Early learning is key to future literacy & numeracy
In Australia, children start school a year or more later than in most other developed countries there is no compulsory preschool attendance and we currently have one of the lowest percentages of children in early learning for more than three years (15 per cent).
Recent research from the International Educational Evaluation Association on Year 4 literacy and numeracy tests across 40 countries, found that children who had three years or more of early learning performed better than those who had only one year of preschool or none at all.
Is our lack of mandatory and regulated preschool program adversely affecting the future literacy and numeracy scores of our children?
Goodstart Early Learning Chief Executive Officer Julia Davison said recently that access to quality early learning was the key to improving later educational performance, because over 80 per cent of a child's brain development occurs before a child starts school.
"Access to quality early learning in the important early years has been shown to be the most cost effective way to improve literacy and numeracy", said Ms Davidson.
In fact recent research by the Melbourne Institute found that children who attended a quality preschool scored 20-30 points higher on Year 3 NAPLAN results than children who did not.
In this study, a "quality preschool" was one where the teacher held a Diploma or Bachelor degree.
Unlike many other countries whose preschools are an extension of their primary schools and feed directly into the main school, preschools in Australia are separate and aside from some private organisations, most are run by local councils.
Preschool education is currently largely unregulated and state based and although 15 hours free preschool per week are offered to all children in the year before they start school, it is not yet compulsory to attend.
It is largely therefore up to parents and carers, child care centres and family day care centres, to provide adequate pre school literacy and numeracy programs, but as the Australian National Curriculum is not yet mandatory, it's up to child care centres to offer a program if they choose and have the resources.
In our own Child Care and Workforce participation survey, just under 40 per cent of parents said their child's child care service either didn't provide a preschool literacy and numeracy program or they were unsure if they did or not.
It is therefore not surprising that Australia's literacy and numeracy results are low by comparison with most other developed countries.
The OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) recently released a major report urging Australia to increase childcare assistance and the quality of preschool education as a means of increasing economic growth and productivity.
Australia's participation rate for children having three years or more of early learning (at 15 per cent) compares unfavourably with countries that lead the world in reading scores: Hong Kong (68 per cent), Russia (69 per cent), Finland (46 per cent), Singapore (64 per cent), and Denmark (81 cent).
It's time that Australia got behind the importance of preschool and made it compulsory for all children to attend in the year before they start school. Offering it isn't good enough. This year should be able to be taken in either designated preschools or in qualifying child care and family day care services who have undergone national curriculum training and who have qualified staff to implement the program.
So get with the preschool program, Australia. It's not unachievable by any means and it could make all the difference to the future success of our kids and therefore of our country.
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