According to the most recent job figures, the need for childcare employees is at an all-time high. More than 3000 Educators are required in Sydney alone, with a total of 16,000 required across the country. In addition to the shortage, 37% of workers intend to leave the industry, many of whom are dissatisfied with their salary and working conditions, a sentiment compounded by the pandemic.
An Australian researcher Dr Helen Adam, has warned that classic and popular children's stories could be harmful to children as they fail to portray diverse characters.
The Healing Foundation’s Stolen Generations Resource Kit for Educators and Children has been created to educate young people about the Stolen Generations. It makes it easy for the community to start the conversation and inform discussions using facts, real examples and stories.
The National Children’s Education and Care Workforce Strategy (2022-2031) has been developed to support the recruitment, retention, sustainability and quality of the sector workforce.
Golden Grove High School in Adelaide has removed the outer doors from the bathrooms to create gender-neutral bathrooms and hopes to provide "greater safety" for students when using stalls. This has received tons of criticism from parents.
On 24 May 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended the Quad Leaders’ Summit where he received a report from UNICEF that showed that Australia ranks 30 out of 39 economically advanced countries on the impact of environmental conditions on children's wellbeing.
On 9th May 2022, The Australian Building Codes Board published the preview of the National Construction Code 2022 for early childhood services. Most of the emphasis is on extra security measures of the risks associated with evacuating children from multi-storey buildings. These key changes will be adopted and implemented on 1 September 2022.
On 30 September 2021, 28 children attended a Perth museum on three 12 seater buses. An initial head was done when children arrived back at the service with only 27 children being accounted for. The educator assumed the child went home. At around 3:45 pm (2 hours later) the child was found locked inside one of the buses parked behind the service.
After some distressing and regrettable incidents in early childhood services in Queensland, many parents think that the sign-in and sign-out process in childcare services should be reassessed, more tough and strong so further incidents can be avoided.
From the 27th of May, 2022 to the 3rd of June, we celebrate Reconciliation Week, Connecting The Dots Through Culture has developed the Sea Of Hearts Challenge.
