The federal Coalition has proposed an alternative to the universal child care system involving vouchers that could be used for long daycare, family daycare, nannies or a combination of these.
Senator Leah Blyth argues in an opinion article in The Australian Financial Review that a voucher system would provide families with choice and flexibility to better meet their needs.
This would be in contrast to the current system, in which the federal government directly funds long day childcare and family day care with subsidies to the service provider. Blyth argues the subsidised system distorts the workforce.
So what are the actual problems the vouchers would address? And how would they address the current shortcomings in the system?
The child care system has bigger problems
The most recent and well publicised issues in long daycare, used by 47% of Australian families with children under five, include:
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child safety (including abuse)
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insufficient appropriately qualified educators and teachers
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high educator and teacher turnover rates – educators and teachers must be able to engage with children and families over time, building relationships of trust
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the predominance of for-profit services (75% nationally that by their structure are very likely to put profit ahead of quality of care for children
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the undersupply of places, also called “child care deserts” – these are geographical areas where there are either insufficient or no services to meet demand.
Surely, any proposal for reform needs to address at least some of these challenges.
Would a voucher change the choices available?
The voucher proposition raises several concerns.
Choice of service implies that such services exist. Many families live in areas where there is little choice. In rural, remote and regional areas, or on the outskirts of cities, there may be just one service. Or there may be insufficient demand for a centre to be financially viable.
A focus on choice also implies parents know what childcare services are available and what they offer, and can make an informed choice.
A sparkling new building or frequent media advertising, for example, may not inform parents about staff retention rates, qualifications, or the centre’s Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority quality rating.
The Coalition argues that over-regulation strangles supply. Currently, state-based regulators are working to improve quality by shutting down consistently underperforming centres. Centres are carefully assessing educator qualifications. Reducing regulation will not address safety and quality issues.
Extending the vouchers to in-home care, such as nannies, would ignore safety issues. Measures are underway to address the employment of abusers in long daycare. But a voucher system that includes in-home nanny care could give abusers unsupervised and long day access to young children.
Given the staffing crisis, it is difficult to see how making the system less financially stable due to dependency on vouchers would encourage potential educators to consider a career in the sector.
How would centres plan for the future?
As in any organisation, whether for profit or not-for-profit, financial viability is critical. Centres must have reliable funding sources to operate a continuing service.
Salaries are the biggest cost in any service, followed by running costs. Under the current model, centres are able to plan for these costs because they know the numbers of children, their age and attendance, well in advance.
Under the proposed voucher model, funding would be more likely to fluctuate, which could make service planning difficult due to financial instability. It would also increase the administrative burden.
Vouchers would need to set the cost of care for each child per hour and per day. Because costs vary between cities and regions, it would be difficult to calculate a uniform cost per child that could apply across Australia.
Families with children with special needs often experience difficulty in finding a service. These children require costly additional support that services claim they cannot provide. Currently, an additional childcare subsidy is only available under certain conditions such as temporary financial hardship. A voucher system would need to consider this particular challenge.
Why do we put our children in early years education and care?
As a nation, we need to decide on the primary purpose of early years education and care.
Is to provide care for children so that their parents can be part of the workforce, increasing overall productivity?
Or is its purpose to provide children and families with access to high quality early childhood education and care, which is their right? If we choose the second, we need to consider whether the provision of a voucher system would align with that goal.
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