Part of the federal government’s early childhood reform agenda involves establishing a range of professional pathways for those working in early childhood education, producing highly qualified staff who offer quality educational services to young children and their families.

 

One such project will soon deliver a report outlining strategies and approaches to support early childhood educators in rural and remote areas as they engage in ongoing professional development. 

 

Collaborators in the Early Childhood Education Workforce Capacity Project (ECEWCP) are in the process of developing essential resources to support educators as they upgrade their professional skills and work towards the government’s commitment to ensure every child in Australia has access to quality childcare.

 

Funded by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Work Place Relations under the Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund for Equity and Access in December 2008, the ECEWCP commenced in 2009 with Charles Sturt University (CSU) as the senior institutional partner. CSU has worked in close collaboration with TAFE NSW Riverina Institute (RIT), TAFE NSW Western Institute (WIT) and the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education (BIITE) to develop and deliver these resources.

 

The project aimed to build workforce capacity in early childhood education through enhancing existing expertise and building the workforce, particularly in inland and Indigenous areas in NSW and the Northern Territory. The project developed training pathways that are accessible and locally supported, with a particular emphasis on the development of appropriate programs that match the needs and strengths of communities. From here, the resources developed will be made available to all early learning educators in training.

 

Project manager, Dr Alison Lord says, “The national quality standards reflect what research tells us - the better qualified the teacher, the better the educational and social outcomes. All children should have access to a qualified teacher and the ECEWCP has concentrated on building the capacity, particularly in inland and Indigenous communities, for education providers to access the necessary tools so we have high quality, qualified teachers throughout Australia.”

 

The collaborators worked with 20 teaching students in the Northern Territory, the Riverina and western regions of NSW to consider the pathways available for students, the support needed to promote engagement in further career development, and the resources within communities, as well as the collaborating institutions, to provide this.

 

“These students are working full-time and studying by distance part-time,” Dr Lord explained.  “We had trialled university study during their TAFE qualifications and it was too much of a workload. We need to look at ways that the TAFE to university pathway is more integrated so they start doing Charles Sturt University study earlier in their TAFE studies if early childhood teaching is the pathway they wish to take. Transition to university study was a priority in the NSW pilot sites.

 

“We did this with the help of community facilitators, people who are embedded in the community to act as liaison between the student and the university. Each student had a mentor and we provided training to those mentors. We developed a mentoring package and delivered it face to face and this will be one of the resources available online. We also organised face to face orientation for the students such as how to learn online and how to write for university assessment.”

 

The resources created from this project will be available to teaching students, their mentors and communities in October.