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ABSTRACT
Australian early childhood education still labours with the achievement of universal access and the production of comprehensive and consistent data to underpin a national evidence base. In this article, we attend to the processes led by numbers whereby new practices of quantification, rationalization and reporting are introduced and mastered in a New South Wales preschool to reach universal access and effective data reporting following state initiatives. Provisional numbers, set by the state government, are instrumental in configuring and solidifying these processes through which preschools engage in creative strategizing, modelling and calculations to enact, inform and form policies. With the help of a preschool director’s biographical notes, we explore the complex entanglements of these new processes and the resulting ambivalent positions professionals find themselves in, the ethical dilemmas that emerge and the practical and material consequences and political possibilities that formalizing processes of universal access and data production bring forward.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Zsuzsa Millei is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Social Research and Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Tampere, Finland. She is interested in early childhood education as bio-political practice, the preschool as a political and intergenerational space, childhood as a political form of being, and children as political actors with rights. Her current studies explore everyday nationhood in children's preschool lives, autoethnography and collective biography of (post)socialist childhoods and schooling, and the operation of psy knowledges in education.
Jannelle Gallagher has been a teacher for 35 years and a director of the Kurri Kurri Preschool, NSW, Australia, for most of this time. She has completed a Masters in Early Childhood Education and postgraduate courses in Leadership and Management in ECEC, and Activism in ECEC (by invitation). Her centre is one of the few in Australia that has been assessed by the Australian Early Childhood Quality Authority as ‘Exceeding National Quality Standards’. In recent years, Jannelle has developed an innovative child-centred integrated service delivery model bringing together numerous healthcare professionals and teachers in collaborative and holistic professional practice. Besides her numerous research projects, her work in ‘boys’ education has earned her an ‘Excellence in Teaching’ award, and she passes on her extensive knowledge through staff and university mentoring. Jannelle's close relationship with her local Aboriginal community has increased participation rates for Aboriginal children 3–5 years in her Early Childhood Education program substantially. She continues to advocate for children's rights to be viewed as active agents of change in her local community.
Notes
2 The Australian Government's roles and responsibilities for ECEC include paying Child Care Benefit to eligible families using approved childcare services or registered carers, paying Child Care Rebate to eligible families using approved childcare services, providing funding to State and Territory governments through the National Partnership (centre-based funding). National Partnership on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education (NPUAECE) to support the achievement of universal access to early childhood education from http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2015/childcare-education-and-training/early-childhood-education-and-care/rogs-2015-volumeb-chapter3.pdf.
4 CoAG is the peak intergovernmental forum in Australia composed of the Prime Minister, State and Territory Premiers, and Chief Ministers and the President of the Australian Local Government Association. CoAG is charged with implementing reforms.
10 Community preschools are mostly community owned, based and managed. They are mostly not-for-profit centres and have two types: (1) stand-alone preschool managed by a committee comprised of parents and community members and (2) sponsored where an organization is managing the preschool, sometimes with advisory committees comprised of parents and community members. In NSW, some preschools are operated by the Department of Education. Long Day Care services also offer early childhood programmes. http://www.preschoolsnsw.org.au/about-preschools/community-owned.
11 ‘Community Child Care Co-operative (NSW) is a not-for-profit organisation established in 1978 to promote, support and advocate for quality education and care services. We aim to inform and inspire the education and care services sector, and influence government policy, practices and programs so that children within NSW have access to quality education and care services that meet the needs of their communities.’ http://ccccnsw.org.au/about-us/who-we-are.
12 ‘Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) is a product developed by the ABS that ranks areas in Australia according to relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage. The indexes are based on information from the five-yearly Census’ (Australian Bureau of Statistics). Preschool located in disadvantaged areas were represented by SEIFA area code and children with disadvantaged backgrounds as ‘equity children’. This kind of coding makes no difference between a child who is really experiencing disadvantage or not but living in the area, and disabling those families who lived in higher SEIFA areas but still requiring assistance to access this extra funding in order to attend preschool.
14 A child is eligible for Base Funding if the child turns 4 before July 31 the preschool year or is an equity 2-year-old child (disadvantaged background or Indigenous).
16 Preschool teachers have a 4-year university degree. With this degree, in most of the cases, they are also qualified to teach in primary school too. There is a long-standing action for pay parity coordinated by the Independent Education Union of Australia. See also news here: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/early-childhood-teachers-push-for-pay-parity-with-primary-school-teachers/news-story/38ffedb1c9055b7437ed54b17d8e7f4e.
17 See notes from the General Purpose Standing Committee discussing the issue of Commonwealth moneys unspent by state administration while preschools were struggling with funds https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/DBAssets/InquiryOther/Transcript/10125/Early%20Childhood%20Education%20Aboriginal%20Affairs%20.pdf.
18 The Commonwealth government entered into the policy scene of ECEC with the 2009 National Partnership. This role is, however, limited overseeing and partly subsidizing ECEC in order to reach universal access. Historically, the provision and regulation of ECEC was the responsibility of states and territories, which they have kept after 2009. So the Commonwealth funding is channelled through the state and territory governments.