Early childhood education and care review

We want feedback on affordability, accessibility, and consumer choice in early childhood education and care.

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) is reviewing the NSW early childhood education and care sector to look at improvements that could be made to affordability, accessibility, and consumer choice.

Early childhood services include:

  • long day care, family day care and occasional care (for children aged 0-5 years)
  • NSW Department of Education preschool, community and mobile preschool (for children aged 3-5 years, focusing on the year before school)
  • out of school hours care (before and after school care and vacation care) (for school children up to 12 years of age).

As part of the review, IPART will also estimate ‘benchmark’ prices to measure and compare fees in NSW.

IPART has released an Issues Paper seeking your feedback on experiences of access and affordability in the sector, which is currently used by more than 300,000 families in NSW. IPART has also published a short Overview summarising key issues and questions in the Issues Paper.

IPART would like to hear from the community, including families from all backgrounds across NSW, as well as providers and workers in the sector, advocacy groups and sector representatives about their experience and concerns.

High quality early childhood education and care is a critical issue for NSW families closely linked to better long-term educational outcomes for children and increased workforce participation for women.

Tell us what you think

IPART is seeking your feedback on the Overview, Issues Paper and affordability, accessibility, and consumer choice in the sector. This will help IPART make recommendations to the NSW Government to help ensure better outcomes for families and children.

You can respond until 22 May 2023 by:

  • doing our survey and/or taking our quick poll
  • mapping your experiences
  • telling us your story, or
  • making a submission.

There will be further opportunities to provide feedback throughout the review. IPART will also hold online public hearings on 15 and 16 May 2023 and publish an Interim Report in October 2023.

IPART will make final recommendations in December this year.

IPART’s review is focused on the NSW experience - there are also 2 national inquiries under way into early childhood education and care by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Productivity Commission.

To register for IPART’s upcoming public hearings, or for more information on this review, please see IPART’s website.

Thank you for your feedback

This engagement is now closed. Thank you for participating and sharing your thoughts and ideas. We are currently reviewing your feedback. Submissions received in response to the Issues Paper and an Information Paper on the results of this consultation have been published on IPART's website.

We want feedback on affordability, accessibility, and consumer choice in early childhood education and care.

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) is reviewing the NSW early childhood education and care sector to look at improvements that could be made to affordability, accessibility, and consumer choice.

Early childhood services include:

  • long day care, family day care and occasional care (for children aged 0-5 years)
  • NSW Department of Education preschool, community and mobile preschool (for children aged 3-5 years, focusing on the year before school)
  • out of school hours care (before and after school care and vacation care) (for school children up to 12 years of age).

As part of the review, IPART will also estimate ‘benchmark’ prices to measure and compare fees in NSW.

IPART has released an Issues Paper seeking your feedback on experiences of access and affordability in the sector, which is currently used by more than 300,000 families in NSW. IPART has also published a short Overview summarising key issues and questions in the Issues Paper.

IPART would like to hear from the community, including families from all backgrounds across NSW, as well as providers and workers in the sector, advocacy groups and sector representatives about their experience and concerns.

High quality early childhood education and care is a critical issue for NSW families closely linked to better long-term educational outcomes for children and increased workforce participation for women.

Tell us what you think

IPART is seeking your feedback on the Overview, Issues Paper and affordability, accessibility, and consumer choice in the sector. This will help IPART make recommendations to the NSW Government to help ensure better outcomes for families and children.

You can respond until 22 May 2023 by:

  • doing our survey and/or taking our quick poll
  • mapping your experiences
  • telling us your story, or
  • making a submission.

There will be further opportunities to provide feedback throughout the review. IPART will also hold online public hearings on 15 and 16 May 2023 and publish an Interim Report in October 2023.

IPART will make final recommendations in December this year.

IPART’s review is focused on the NSW experience - there are also 2 national inquiries under way into early childhood education and care by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Productivity Commission.

To register for IPART’s upcoming public hearings, or for more information on this review, please see IPART’s website.

Thank you for your feedback

This engagement is now closed. Thank you for participating and sharing your thoughts and ideas. We are currently reviewing your feedback. Submissions received in response to the Issues Paper and an Information Paper on the results of this consultation have been published on IPART's website.

Tell us your story

We want to hear your experiences of early childhood education and care and invite you to add your story below.

We want families to tell us about their experiences of using early childhood services. We are keen to hear from families who plan to or currently use these services, families who have used them in the past, and families who have been unable to use these services. We also want to know about how families feel about the accessibility, availability, affordability, and choice of early childhood services in their local areas.

We want early childhood service providers and people who work in these services to tell us about their experiences of operating and working in these services in NSW and the challenges that they face. We are keen to hear from service providers operating (or who have operated) early childhood services in NSW and people who work (or who have worked) in early childhood services in NSW. We also want to know about how these experiences and challenges might have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

You can also add your thoughts by mapping your experience or completing the survey to have your say.

If you are submitting an image with your story, please note that we are unable to publish stories that include images of children.

In the interest of privacy, we ask you not to name any specific early childhood services or individuals when sharing your feedback or attach images of children to your submission.

Thank you for sharing your story with us.
This engagement is now closed. We are currently reviewing your contribution.

  • How can the government REALLY support early childhood education?

    by Maggie , 5 months ago

    Hi, I’m an early childhood education teacher with bachelor degree and working in a council centre for more than 15 years. I would like to share some insights for this area.

    **** Increase the staff income

    Educators are the key to provide high quality education and services!
    Government in the last few years have invested lots of resources and money which include promoting training programs and increasing the child care subsidy.

    However, Training supports are not attractive enough to keep the educators who suffer low incomes with high responsibilities and work loads.
    We have to increase the salary of the... Continue reading

  • Inclusion

    by P S, 5 months ago

    I have been a teacher in Early Childhood education for over 30 years. I have worked in both Long Day Care and Preschool and have been a Teaching Director for a very large part of my career, I am currently the Director/Inclusion Support Teacher in a Community Based Preschool.

    Our centre is in metropolitan Sydney and we have many Early Childhood Centres in our LGA (none supported by our council though). Accessibility should not be a problem but for children with a disability it is.

    As the Inclusion Support Teacher, I deal with so many families who have been turned... Continue reading

  • Pay is important but more needs to change

    by BelleA, 5 months ago

    I work as an early childhood teacher in a small community based not-for-profit centre. I have a Masters in Teaching and have been working with children from 2005 and full-time since 2013.


    If you had asked me if I thought an increase in pay would attract and retain staff last year I would have said, no. I would have said that it is the unrealistic workloads, the stress, the unpredictability, the responsibility and most of all, the uncertainty inherent in the work that is driving people away. To fix the staffing issues, I would have suggested that a reassessment of... Continue reading

  • Limited options in non-metro centres

    by Jodie, 5 months ago
    We moved to the Wollongong region and were able to find a place for my 2+ old child in a wonderful centre near our house, but my younger child <2 we could not find anything in the whole area. I was lucky I had a flexible work situation which meant I worked nights and weekends until she turned 2 and could attend the same centre as my oldest. There are very few places for babies in this area with many centres only accepting 2+ old children which is very limiting for any primary carer who wants to return to work.

    ... Continue reading

  • A barrier for equality

    by JacintaJ, 5 months ago

    Becoming a parent is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life, it has also been the hardest. I have two young girls aged 5 and under, and a support network that includes my husband and both sets of grandparents locally. I am a social worker by profession and am lucky to have some excellent work place entitlements attached to my job. My husband as an electrician for a large company does not have access to any of these entitlements. If we wanted to equally share the parenting role we cannot (he has limited sick... Continue reading

  • Career crisis

    by Kelly G, 5 months ago
    I am a highly qualified and skilled Early Childhood Teacher. I have a Bachelor of Teaching and a Masters of Inclusive Education. I have worked as a teacher, a Centre Director and in Early Intervention. I have invested 7 years of university and 22 years of my life to a career I have loved. I am passionate about inclusion, finding ways to ensure that all children from every background can access an educational program that works for them. That each family feels welcome and involved In their child’s education and that we work on goals that are important to them.

    ... Continue reading

  • N young.

    by N young , 5 months ago
    I start work at 8:30. I walked in to my room, at 8:00 to begin preparing for my day. This is unpaid, but if i want to deliver the required curriculum i have to do it. As i walk in, i have 3 children screaming for their parents to comfort, 1 child has had an accident, 2 children are fighting in the corner over a toy, and i need to update another family on their childs progress. I am expecting 30 children today. I have 2 other staff with me, but, one is on a mental health day due to... Continue reading
  • The Higher Education Pipeline

    by Jennifer, 5 months ago

    As a lecturer in Education at a regional university, I was delighted to see the government investment in places for Early Education. The quality of trained ECE teachers has improved over the past ten years, but where are these increased numbers of trainees evident in the workforce? The sector has to work with the Education Department to ensure trainees (TAFE and University) are given practicum opportunities to work in rural and remote locations (as they do with trainee Teachers) and that upon graduation, young teachers are supported in starting EC businesses in rural areas where existing employers do not exist.

  • Lack of childcare availability

    by Vivian T, 5 months ago
    All the centres in our area are completely full. Even though I signed up to all the centres in our area when I was pregnant, I still haven't been able to get a spot or to keep a spot I would have to put my daughter in at the beginning of the year. Even then, only certain days are available. These are significant barriers to women returning to work.
  • Lack of Staff and Day Care Centres/Family Day Care in Regional Areas

    by Bek712, 5 months ago

    I work full time and have a 3 year old son currently enrolled in full time care at the towns day care Centre, my 7 month old daughter is still on the waiting list with no enrollment date in sight due to lack of staff at the centre. She has now been on the waiting list for over 13 months. It is the only Centre in our regional town and the next main town is 65km away. I have been advised by the owner of the Centre that they cannot obtain adequately trained staff, and on the rare occasions they... Continue reading