The Early Learning Everyone Benefits campaign has published The State of Early Learning in Australia 2017 report, with analysis support from the Mitchell Institute.

The Report provides a high-level snapshot of quality, participation and affordability of early childhood education and care in Australia and builds on the first edition: State of Early Learning in Australia 2016 report.

The findings indicate that some children continue to miss out on accessing high quality early education and care, possibly due to affordability, distance or a lack of awareness of the benefits that early education can bring. The report also highlights areas of improvement and shows that the state of early learning in Australia must improve to build Australia’s future prosperity.

Key findings

• One in five Australian children start school vulnerable in one or more domain(s) of social, emotional, language and cognitive, communication and general knowledge, or physical development; it’s two in five for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
• Children who attend a quality early learning service are half as likely to have developmental vulnerabilities in one or more domain(s) when they start school as children who don’t attend any form of early childhood education.
• Preschool participation rates for children in the year before starting school (includes four to six-year-olds) have rapidly increased in Australia, lifting from 12 per cent in 2008 to 91 per cent in 2015. However, Australia still lags behind two thirds of OECD countries on three-year-old participation, with 69 per cent of three-year-olds attending an early learning service, of which only 15 per cent participate in a preschool program.
• Australian children are falling behind in international tests, like the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), and the report notes that a child with no pre-primary education is 1.9 times more likely to perform poorly in education than a student who has attended more than a year of pre-primary education, even after controlling for socioeconomic status.

Read the full report: The State of Early Learning in Australia 2017.

Find out more about the Early Learning Everyone Benefits campaign.

Early Learning Everyone Benefits is a collaborative national campaign to increase community understanding of the life-changing benefits to children of participating in quality early learning and the considerable flow on benefits to families, communities and national wellbeing. More than 5000 parents and early childhood educators support the campaign – you can too by signing up for monthly emails, and liking the campaign’s Facebook page.