The minister for early childhood education says work on the first nationwide register for early childhood educators will begin immediately, after a new package was announced in Sydney this morning.
Education Minister Jason Clare and his state and territory counterparts agreed to a $189 million package, which will also include CCTV being trialled in hundreds of childcare centres across the country.
Early Childhood Education Minister Jess Walsh.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The move comes after Melbourne childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown was charged with sexually abusing eight children under the age of two.
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“Now … we have approved that register, and it will start in December and become mandatory in February,” Early Childhood Education Minister Jess Walsh told ABC News’ Afternoon Briefing on Friday.
“[Currently] state regulators can’t see that information, even for their own state, and we are going to allow regulators to see that information and share it, and what we want is for regulators to be able to track patterns of behaviour of early childhood educators, and raise red flags,” she said.
“It’s also going to be really useful [if] terrible circumstances like this ever happen again in early childhood education. We’ve had a situation in Victoria where police have had to use search and seize powers to go in and find pieces of paper to tell us where the alleged Victorian offender worked.
“That’s not good enough. That information should be available at the touch of a button, and it will be with this register.”
Asked what issues could lead to workers losing their registration, Walsh said it was too early to go into that. “It’s about who they are, where they work, and it will allow regulators to track their behaviours and also share information about concerns about those regulators,” she said.
“Down the track, as we build up this system, professional registration of the kind that you’re talking about can be added on.”
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