Tony Vinson: Australia is out of step

Vinson calls for investment in pre-school education

By Kerri Carr

Australia must follow the example of other enlightened countries in making early childhood education and care a national priority, Professor Tony Vinson said on Public Education Day.

His Federation-commissioned report, The Education and Care of Our Young Children: Good Beginnings, made recommendations aimed to increase the number of pre-school places available in NSW.

"As can be seen by examining the achievements of countries like New Zealand, Sweden and England, the fruits of better early childhood care and education policies depend on a substantial investment in their cultivation," Professor Vinson said.

"The twin barriers in the case of Australia have been lack of national leadership and the willingness to invest in our most precious national resource."

Professor Vinson said Australia was "out of step" with the majority of other countries in the OECD.

He said a 2005 OECD review found spending on pre-primary education as a proportion of GDP ranged from a low of 0.2 per cent in Australia and Ireland to 0.7 per cent or more in Denmark, France, Hungary and Norway.

He also reported a study that, compared with 16 other 'rich nations,' Australia devotes the least resources to early childhood education and care. A 2002 OECD comparison of the proportion of three- and four-year-olds enrolled in education placed Australia 23rd out of 28 OECD countries.

Professor Vinson said in most OECD countries children are guaranteed a place in subsidised, decent quality early childhood education and care programs -- at the age of one in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, at two in France, at two and a half in Belgium, at three in Italy and Germany, and at four in Britain.

"In almost all of the 12 countries reviewed by the OECD, governments pay the largest share of costs, with parents covering about a quarter, and significantly less in some countries. The two or three years of care/education prior to compulsory schooling are often free," he said.

Professor Vinson noted the New Zealand Government has decided to finance 20 hours per week free access to early childhood education for all three and four year-olds by 2007 in licensed, teacher-led services.

He said children's readiness to learn was greatest in their earliest years and there were disadvantageous consequences in educational and other terms of missing that opportunity.

He agreed with Uniting Care Burnside and affiliate organisations insisting that education and care services should be universally available for all three and four-year-olds and that more vulnerable or disadvantaged children should have access to such services at an even earlier age depending on their circumstances.

"Those goals are not eccentric but mainstream policy in many countries," he said.

Mr Vinson reported a large scale early childhood longitudinal study indicated "disadvantaged children not only arrive at school less well prepared but early gaps persist and even widen as children progress through school".

"The children in question more frequently drop out of high school, and have more unemployment, welfare dependency, delinquency and crime," Mr Vinson said.

"An overseas Institute for Early Education Research has found that children living in poverty are 18 months behind the average child when they start kindergarten," he added.

Professor Vinson said the alternative to investing in early childhood education and care was "heavy investments in the state agencies that control the behaviour of people ill-equipped to face the challenges of contemporary society".

"Unless we are reconciled to a future in which some individuals have disadvantage piled upon disadvantage from the beginning of their lives and an ever-increasing number of human disposal institutions to contain the inevitable consequences, we will insist on a national, high quality, and adequately funded approach to the early education of all of our children.

"Our generation will not be remembered for the number of gaols that we bequeath. It could be remembered for rescuing the souls of our most vulnerable children.... Our sense of justice, our obligation to all of our children demand nothing less," Professor Vinson said.

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