Investing in early childhood education

Early childhood expert Dr Kym Macfarlane explains why investing in early childhood care means laying solid foundations for future education.

A great deal of money is currently being invested by the federal government to ensure that all 3-4 year old children have access to an early childhood teacher for at least 15 hours per week. This investment has meant strong emphasis by the States on ensuring there are enough early childhood teachers to fill this role. 

In Queensland, scholarships have been offered to teachers and early years’ practitioners to encourage them to add further early childhood qualifications to their repertoire. There have been similar moves in other states. Therefore, the investment in this federal government initiative is significant.

I imagine it is easy to wonder why such an initiative is important in some respects. However, when I speak to individuals about the importance of such investment, it does appear that it is not fully understood. In fact, perhaps more importantly, my experience has found there is a distinct ambivalence about why money is invested in this area, particularly if it includes child care or parental leave. I often hear feedback that such investment is unnecessary and if parents choose to have children then they should take responsibility for them without expecting assistance from the government.

The point that is missed in such an argument is that the care and education of children 0-8 years affects us all. Noble prize winner James Heckman has provided economic arguments that indicate money invested in early childhood care and education actually saves the community money in future years. Put simply, if the government invests money in young children and their families, then it is more likely these young children will grow up to be responsible tax-paying citizens who are unlikely to engage in criminal or deviant activity. In a sense, the care and education of children 0-8 years is the responsibility of everyone – not just the responsibility of their parents. It really does take a village to raise a child.

A further argument is that early childhood care and education involves young children’s learning and thus, is about education! Young children, even babies, desire social contact and it is through their social contact and their play that they actually begin to learn. We know from the latest research relating to brain development that the early years are crucial and the foundations for future learning and development are laid down at this time. So why, then, are we so reluctant to see our tax-payer dollars spent on these areas?

All too often this spending is mistaken as an investment in adults who ‘choose’ to work and therefore put their children’s care and education second or even that women who seek to further their careers do so at the expense of their children. As a community, we do not think of this spending as an investment in children – an investment in our future as a society.

Early childhood care and education is misunderstood. It is not viewed as education in its own right but as preparing children for the 'real thing' – school.

As a community we need to understand that early childhood care and education actually is the real thing – It’s a critical life stage where children learn the most and when all of their curiosity and creativity is available for enrichment. If children are not exposed to high quality practice at such a time, then it is likely they will lose much of their capacity to be open to learning and to absorb the necessary information that will set them up for later success.

Australia does not have a good record when it comes to investing in early childhood care and education (and education as a whole for that matter). The only way to remedy this is to work in changing attitudes at a grassroots level and will require all Australians to think differently about where their money should be spent.

Dr Kym Macfarlane is a Senior Lecturer of Child and Family Studies at Griffith University and has worked in the early childhood sector for forty years. She has experience as an early childhood teacher and in higher education in the field of Child and Family Studies in Human Services. Kym has extensive experience in working and researching practice issues with children and families from birth to eight years. Her PhD research entitled “An analysis of parent engagement in schooling in contemporary Queensland” particularly relates to the notion of community engagement in schooling and the issues for parents that result from this engagement in the contemporary contexts.