Hear from the Royal Commissioner to wrap up the year and the plan for 2023.
Since the Royal Commission launched in October a lot of work has been underway to shape our inquiries as we move into 2023.
In the first quarter of next year we will ramp up our engagement with parents, experts and key stakeholders, with public hearings and stakeholder roundtables scheduled for January and February.
I’m particularly looking forward to hearing from parents and caregivers across the state in the first of our online forums in late January.
Over three sessions, I will be sitting down and hearing from families and caregivers of young children, including Aboriginal families and families of children with disability. These forums will be vital to ensuring the diverse voices of parents and caregivers are heard as part of the Royal Commission’s work.
First Expert Advisory Group meeting
Last Monday, 12 December, I met with the Expert Advisory Group for the first time.
The group draws on the expertise of leading figures in early childhood education, child development, policy, government, and child health from across Australia and has been established to help identify key priority areas over the course of the Commission’s work.
This first meeting was an opportunity to outline my vision for the direction of the Royal Commission, and to hear from the experts their vision for early childhood in South Australia.
Members agreed that the Royal Commission is an opportunity to clearly articulate the expected early learning outcomes and aspirations from universal 3-year-old preschool, and high quality ECEC more broadly.
Members discussed the state of contemporary research and evidence, and noted the opportunity for South Australia to keep building the global evidence base through embedding evaluation into the roll out of 3-year-old preschool.
Other key themes included the:
- role of families in supporting child development and early learning
- the important place of kindy and ECEC in communities
- the opportunity to layer in supports in ECEC settings
- the critical importance of workforce to quality ECEC
- the importance of cultural connection in ECEC to Aboriginal children.
The EAG will be meeting further throughout 2023 to ensure our findings reflect the most contemporary thinking in early childhood education and care policy, operations and outcomes.
Survey results so far
Since launching our online survey, we have received more than 200 responses from parents and caregivers – and some early themes have already emerged.
Importantly, we have heard from people all over the state, and from not only families with young children, but parents, grandparents and early childhood educators who have told us how important early childhood education and outside school hours care is for working families.
There are a range of views on the role of early childhood education for families and children and I hope to hear more of this in our online forums with parents and caregivers in 2023.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to complete the survey via YourSAy.
Looking to next year
There is a lot of work to do in the first few months of next year to inform the Interim Report, which will focus on 3-year-old preschool.
Submissions are currently open for this report until February and the report will be released in April.
Hon Julia Gillard AC
Royal Commissioner into Early Childhood Education and Care
