Fair start: 10-point plan for early childhood education and care

• Graham Currie

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06 March 2006This plan aims to improve the quality, affordability and fairness of Australia’s child care and preschools system. ACOSS proposes expanding Child Care Benefit, linking its value to the cost of good quality services, axing the Child Care Rebate and creating a national system which gives parents more information about the quality of services, keeps prices in check and helps people pay the bills.



Specific recommendations include:

• publishing a schedule of government-recommended fees for services so parents can compare costs and quality of different service providers.

• creating a 30 per cent Child Care Benefit Guarantee so all families will be paid at least 30 per cent of the government recommended fee for services. Many families will be entitled to much higher levels of support to meet child care costs (with up to 85 per cent being paid to lowest income parents).

• Establishing a National Demand Model and National Planning System to identify demand match the mix of services to local area needs.

The ACOSS plan also provides 20 hours per week of free preschool education for all children in the year before school through State funding, with the federal government extending CCB to all other preschool hours.