“Disregarded and undervalued”: early childhood teacher’s experiences of stress and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been impacted by COVID-19. Australia’s ECEC has not been spared this impact. Australia’s ECEC sector was positioned as an ‘essential’ service providing vital childcare support for frontline workers. This meant the ECEC workforce was positioned as frontline workers caring for young children. It was not long before reports emerged of the ECEC workforce experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety. This paper reports on the findings from a survey of early childhood teachers and educators (n = 75) across Australia. The paper presents analysis of data from 33 early childhood teachers (ECTs). This data shows ECTs were experiencing higher levels of stress and anxiety. We draw attention to factors causing stress and anxiety. We argue there was a sense of feeling dispensable and undervalued. In conclusion, we suggest there is a need for systemic workforce reform to address wellbeing issues facing the ECEC sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood workforce
• COVID-19 pandemic
• wellbeing
• stress

Introduction

This was an awful year to be a teacher due to feeling like an after-thought during implementation of rules around restrictions, and then dispensable and undervalued when we were treated like babysitters instead of highly qualified teachers

(Early Childhood Teacher #13).

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been impacted severely by the COVID-19 world-wide pandemic (Henderson et al. 2024; Nuttall et al. 2024). Governments rapidly positioned ECEC as an essential service providing ‘childcare’ for frontline health workers and other essential service workers (Blum and Dobrotić 2021; Park et al. 2020). This was in stark contrast to schools who were quickly closed, reverting to online learning for the safety of students and teachers (Visnjic-Jevtic et al. 2021).

In Australia, voices from within the ECEC profession were not absent in this context. Early childhood teachers (ECTs) and educators¹ were speaking out about their working conditions. One ECT went public, stating she felt ‘invisible and that you count for nothing’ (Spiden 2020). Articulating her plight, she outlined how government responses to COVID-19 had effectively positioned ECTs as something other than a ‘teacher’ just because they did not work in schools.

However, ECEC workforce² issues were not something that emerged because of COVID-19. Rather, COVID-19 highlighted existing ECEC workforce issues. Internationally, a 2019 survey reported that across ECEC systems staff wellbeing was directly impacting on process quality (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2019, 2020). Australia’s first large scale workforce survey of the ECEC workforce (n = 1200) reported similar findings in relation to wellbeing and profession status with up to 20% of the respondents indicating their intent to leave the profession because of a desire for better wages and/or wage parity with colleagues in other education contexts and equal professional recognition (Irvine et al. 2016). The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) released their ten-year ECEC workforce strategy reporting the three main contributors to stress were pay, work conditions, and invisibility intersecting with a female dominated workforce (ACECQA 2021a).

This paper reports on the findings from a survey of Australian ECTs conducted in late 2020. We commenced the introduction with a quote from an ECT responding in this survey. The sense of being dispensable and undervalued was evident to us as we engaged with this data. To help establish the context for this paper, we provide an overview of the ECEC context specific to Australia, including examining the literature on ECT wellbeing. Contextualising the context, we outline the survey methodology and methods. Findings are presented and discussed where we highlight the key finding of increased levels of stress and anxiety. In conclusion we argue for further research into the wellbeing of ECTs through a system understanding of wellbeing.

The Australian early childhood education and care context

Between 2007 and 2013 the Australian Governments introduced a raft of reforms to improve quality in the ECEC (Brennan and Adamson 2012). Reform initiatives included a National Partnership agreement between the states and territories and the Federal government as well as legislation of a National Quality Framework (NQF) (COAG 2009). The reforms saw the first Australian national curriculum for ECEC come into effect along with national quality standards and included a national workforce development strategy to support quality improvement (Logan, Sumsion, and Press 2015).

The NQF established minimum qualifications³ for the workforce as well as setting out key targets to increase the professionalism of the workforce (COAG 2009). Of importance to this paper, is the reform strategy of increasing the number of ECTs in the workforce to support quality reform targets.⁴ Prior to COVID-19 the shortage of ECTs presented challenges, highlighting the growing complexity of the ECEC workforce agenda meeting its reforms (Gibson et al. 2019). Specifically, salary, work conditions and professional recognition were seen to be influencing graduate teachers’ choices (Liu and Boyd 2020).

The Australian early childhood workforce retention and wellbeing

International research has shown a strong correlation between ECEC workforce wellbeing and retention (Cumming, Wong, and Logan 2021; Kwon et al. 2022; McMullen et al. 2020; Thorpe et al. 2020). In Australia, this was confirmed in the first ever national survey of the workforce (Cumming and Gibson 2020; Cumming and Wong 2019; Cumming, Logan, and Wong 2020; McDonald, Thorpe, and Irvine 2018). There was evidence that ongoing workforce constraints such as wages, work conditions and continuing workforce demands were significantly contributing to workforce wellbeing, and thus, workforce retention (Cumming, Wong, and Logan 2021). Research identifying the ‘must haves’ for the profession in moving forward includes valuing ECEC beyond notions of it being positioned as ‘childcare’ by national government and instead to extend policy ambitions beyond workforce participation arguments (Cumming, Wong, and Logan 2021).

What lacks in workforce data for Australia is a separation of findings between vocational qualified educators and degree qualified ECTs. Existing wellbeing research on the Australian ECEC workforce uses the collective term ‘educators’ capturing both educators and ECTs. Yet we know that the roles and responsibilities differ according to level of qualification, with ECTs holding a greater sense of responsibility for quality whilst also often being in leadership positions (Grieshaber and Graham 2015; Henderson, Katherine, and Hasina 2022). What we can infer from this research is that workplace wellbeing of ECTs is strongly connected to professional recognition along with sense of responsibility both within and outside of the profession (Jones et al. 2019).

Early childhood teacher wellbeing

The most significant contributing factor leading to ECTs leaving their jobs was high levels of job dissatisfaction leading to high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion (Grant, Jeon, and Buettner 2019). An Australian study of ECT graduates showed that a lack of professional recognition both within and outside of the profession was a key factor to the decision to leave the profession (Ciuciu and Robertson 2019). The authors noted that all participants reported the ‘compounding effects of their experiences left [them] aggrieved and exhausted…recognis[ing] that their work was becoming unbearable and impacting their wellbeing’ (p. 89). Research also shows a correlation between workforce wellbeing and ECTs being diagnosed with depression and anxiety (Jeon, Buettner, and Grant 2018; Peele and Wolf 2021; Roberts et al. 2019). This aligns with other international research showing the workload of ECTs is physically and emotionally demanding, that societies view of the profession as being little more than ‘childcare’ takes a personal toll leading to high levels of job dissatisfaction and high numbers of ECTs becoming burnt out and leaving the profession (Bates 2018; Bonetti 2018; Bustamante and Hirsh-Pasek 2020).

Consistent across research is that workforce conditions significantly influence wellbeing. Grant, Jeon, and Buettner (2019) survey of ECTs (n = 1129) from all 50 states in the US highlighted that ‘working conditions, psychological functioning, and intrinsic motivation have a statistically and substantively significant relationship with their intentions to remain at their job or in the ECEC field’ (p.305). As predicted, ECTs who had better work conditions had a decreased likelihood of leaving. This finding is in keeping with past research examining ‘burnout’ of ECTs where workplace environments were significant factors in patterns of burnout identified in ECTs (Noble and Macfarlane 2005). The Happy Teacher project in the US put forward a holistic framework to better understand the wellbeing needs of ECTs (Kwon, Horm, and Amirault 2021). Findings revealed a ‘need for a comprehensive and systematic approach to effectively address the multiple aspects of the work environments that threaten teachers’ health and well-being’ (p.194).

COVID-19 and early childhood teacher wellbeing

Emerging research on work conditions in ECEC since COVID-19 and its impact on workforce wellbeing is indicating significant concerns for workforce wellbeing (Author B; Eadie et al. 2021; Jalongo 2021; Mazza et al. 2020; Quinones, Barnes, and Berger 2021; Souto-Manning and Melvin 2022; Swigonski et al. 2021). The pandemic brought the wellbeing of the ECEC workforce into sharp focus due to the additional stressors it has caused (Henderson, Katherine, and Hasina 2022). Emerging research points to strong evidence that the pandemic increased individual levels of distress, anxiety, stress, and depressive symptoms with much research reporting on the uniqueness of the stress in ECEC being strongly linked to the nature of the work of caring for young children that is ‘deeply social and emotional practice that depends on forming bonds with young children through ongoing responsive interactions’ (Nagasawa and Tarrant 2020, 3).

However, most of this research does not report on findings that distinguish between educators and ECTs. Of those that singled out ECTs, it was clear that research showed the level of stress was having an impact that went beyond the workplace. Souto-Manning and Melvin (2022) survey findings of ECTs of colour in New York (n = 97) showed the health impacts of workplace stress impacted on quality of life and causing sleep disturbance, raised concerns about the health, stress, quality of life, and sleep. They argue that their research findings urge ‘us to attend to teacher stress, health, sleep, and well-being-amid and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic’ (46). It is this context that we now outline the survey methods used to examine the wellbeing of the ECT workforce, where the overarching research questions were: 1) What impact will the COVID-19 pandemic have on the wellbeing of ECTs?; and, 2) What impact might the COVID-19 pandemic have on the Australian ECT workforce?

Theoretical framework

To support the analysis of data we have drawn a systems model of wellbeing with the rationale that a systems model can accommodate the complexity of the ECEC context. As such, we use a theoretical framework to support better understanding of wellbeing for ECEC put forward by Cumming and Wong (2019):

A dynamic state, involving the interaction of individual, relational, work-environmental, and sociocultural-political aspects and contexts. Educators’ well-being is the responsibility of the individual and the agents of these contexts, requiring ongoing direct and indirect supports, across psychological, physiological and ethical dimension

(276).

Rational for this conceptual framework is based on our understanding that the ECT is a subject within a system, and therefore, requires a theory that understands how wellbeing is more than an internal phenomenon. This is in keeping with others such Kwon et al. (2021) who use a similar wellbeing framework, the Jobs Demands Resources, that sought to understand the wellbeing of ECTs through criteria such as job demands, available resources, and professional, physical and psychological wellbeing. Kwon et al. (2021) argues this allows for an understanding of ‘whole teacher wellbeing’ and how factors within the system can cause stress and anxiety because it considers the whole as being in a dynamic relationship, and thus, helps to better understand the complexity of the work of ECTs. More importantly, it allows for direct correlations to be made between working conditions and professional wellbeing. Another systems model of wellbeing relevant here is a model used to understand stress and anxiety with health workers during COVID-19 (Shanafelt, Ripp, and Trockel 2020) that found the main contributors to stress and anxiety among health care workers were a lack of clear messaging, lack of being heard, lack of being protected, lack of being prepared, and lack of support. Combining these models provided us with theoretical framings that permitted analyses that went beyond wellbeing as just individual phenomenon to wellbeing being impacted by systems responding to the unfolding of a pandemic.

Methods

Research design

The findings reported in this paper reflect the second phase of a larger study analysing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the wellbeing of the ECEC workforce. The first phase, collected in March to December of 2020, involved the collection of qualitative data in the form of posts on a private Facebook group Early Childhood Teachers & Educators Victoria. The reporting from the second phase of the study employed a mixed methods approach, comprising quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. This combines the benefits of both approaches, while countering the weaknesses of each when used separately (Creswell 2013). In order to describe and explore ECTs wellbeing during COVID-19 pandemic, a designed questionnaire was used to obtain information about the participating ECTs’ feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and perceptions (Leedy and Ormrod 2019). Quantitative data was collected from closed questions, in a purpose-designed questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected through open-ended questions in the questionnaire.

Participants

Participants in this study were 75 people working in ECEC settings in Australia. Included within that sample were 33 who identified themselves as an ECT. This paper reports on the data from 33 ECTs. Of the 33 ECTs, 12 (36.4%) were between 18 and 29 years old, 5 (15.2%) were between 30 and 39, 10 (30.3%) were 40 to 49 and 6 (18.2%) participants were above 50 years old. Out of the 33 ECTs, 15 (45.5%) worked in long daycare centres, and the other 18 (54.5%) worked in preschool or kindergarten settings.

Instruments

A new survey instrument was developed and used in the second phase of the larger study to specifically identify what caused stress and anxiety for Australian ECEC educators from November 2020–December 2020. In the first phase of the research, researchers drew upon online forum data from a private Facebook (FB) group administered by the Australian Education Union titled Early Childhood Teachers & Educators Victoria, with a membership of over 20,300, reported on elsewhere (Bussey et al. 2022). The FB page was monitored from March–August, 2020. Data analysis was undertaken using the thematic analysis method as described by Braun and Clarke (2006) using a critical constructivist approach using thematic analysis and their six-stage process: 1) familiarisation with the data; 2) generating initial codes; 3) searching for themes; 4) reviewing the themes; 5) defining and naming the themes; and 6) writing up the data analysis and discussion (Braun and Clarke 2006). During stage three, it was identified by the research team that respondents in the FB page identified elements of working in the ECEC profession during the pandemic that were causing them stress and anxiety. Within this analysis we defined stress as ‘the reaction people may have when presented with demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope’ (World Health Organisation 2020). Furthermore, we defined anxiety as ‘an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure’ (American Psychological Association 2024). During stage four and five of data analysis, 10 potential items were identified as potential stressors that members of the FB group identified as causing stress and anxiety.

These 10 items were constructed into a survey instrument and an expert panel comprising of 5 experienced ECEC leaders in the field reviewed the 10 items. After their review and based on their feedback, minor changes in wording were made to clarify understanding of the 10 items. Upon which, a survey (COVID-19 Early Childhood Teacher Stress Factor) was created, including appropriate demographic questions related to age, location of service, qualification, position and service time, and the amended 10 items. The survey was returned to the expert panel to clarify that each item was clearly written and relevant to the topic of potential stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic. For establishing content validity, the content validity index (CVI) was calculated for each stress item and each anxiety item. The results (see Tables 1 and 2) showed CVIs are .95 for the 10 stress items and .93 for the three anxiety items, respectively. Once the survey was deemed ready, it was used for data collection. Participants were asked if any of the 10 items (the list of items is in Table 2) caused them stress during Australia’s first Stage Three nationwide restrictions, and if so, at what level using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = no stress; 5 = extreme stress). Reliability test showed the COVID-19 Early Childhood Teacher Stress Factor survey was reliable, α = 0.89.

Table 1. CVRs for stress items.

Stress Item	CVR
Supporting children in social distancing	.92
Maintaining social distancing with colleagues at work	.98
Supporting children to increase their hygiene practices	.92
Maintaining hygienic standards of the environment at work	.98
The possibility of contracting COVID-19 myself from children, families or other educators	.98
The possibility of contracting COVID-19 myself and spreading it within my home environment	.98
The possibility of spreading COVID-19 to others within my community	.86
Reassuring families of our hygiene and social distancing procedures	.96
Providing connections to families and children who remained at home	.92
Changes in household income	.98

Table 2. CVRs for anxiety items.

Anxiety Item	CVR
Anticipating going to work	.98
At work	.90
Once left work for the day	.92

To evaluate the impact potential stressors were having on ECTs anxiety levels, the survey instrument further asked what level of anxiety ECTs felt during the time of the first stage 3 nationwide restriction period in the following instances (a) anticipating going to work (b) at work, and (c) once you had left work for the day. Responses were coded using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not anxious; 5 = extremely anxious) and an open text-box response asked: ‘What were the main causes of your anxiety?’ Finally, to assess the potential impact on workforce retention, the survey asked if respondents had ever considered leaving the early childhood profession (a) prior to COVID-19 pandemic, or (b) during COVID-19 pandemic using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = definitely yes; 5 = definitely no).

Procedure

Ethical clearance was given by Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee.⁵ The questionnaire was administered online, with data gathering conducted from November 2020–December 2020. On no occasions were participants’ personal information identified in any form of the research report.

Data analysis

Researchers used the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) to analyse the responses. One-Way ANOVA was used to investigate the differences of stress levels among ECTs and non-ECTs. Correlations were used to find the relationships among the stress items and anxiety items. Data was analysed, and alpha was set at 0.05 for the purpose of the present study. To analyse qualitative data, researchers used the analysis proceeding by visiting and revisiting the data and connecting them with in-depth and emerging insights, and consequently, leading to a focused understanding of categories and themes which aligned with ECTs reflection of stress and anxiety (Johnson and Christensen 2019).

Results

More than half of the participating ECTs had only been working in the profession for less than two years, and approximately 40% of the participants had worked as ECTs between 3 and 10 years, and 6% of the participants had worked more than 11 years in the profession. Of the 33 ECTs, more than 60% worked full time, with others working part time or fixed term.

Stress among ECTs

It was found ECTs had significant higher stress levels in the following areas than non-ECTs (see Table 3). These involved areas related to onsite work, such as social distancing and maintaining hygienic practices. The uncertainty brought about by the constantly changing requirements and the need to manage these was highlighted by a number of ECTs. One ECT explained ‘The uncertainty of everyday was stressful. Not knowing if children would be attending or not, or what would be required on the day’ (ECT#15). ECTs seemed to be carrying a greater load for their centres, with ECT#16 stating that they were trying to manage a service in a small community and people’s perspectives on our procedures. They were also navigating their response to daily government press announcements leaving them feeling ‘unsure of what will come [next]’ (ECT#18). In particular, there was a sense of a lack of support from Gov,⁶DET, [and] management (ECT#17) highlighting how various systems were impacting on stress levels.

Table 3. Stress levels between ECTs and non-ECTs.

	Mean		F (1,73)	p	f
	ECT	Non-ECT
Supporting children in social distancing	3.42	2.52	13.25	<.01	.44
Maintaining hygienic standards of the environment at work.	3.52	2.81	6.54	.01	.33
The possibility of contracting COVID-19 myself from children,families or other educators.	3.91	2.95	8.91	<.01	.40
The possibility of contracting COVID-19 myself and spreading itwithin my home environment.	3.97	3.29	4.28	.04	.28
Providing connections to families and children who remained at home.	3.12	2.43	6.24	.02	.29

Note: 1 = no stress, 2 = mild stress, 3 = moderate stress, 4 = much stress, and 4 = extreme stress.

Table 4 presents detailed average stress levels among the participating ECTs. Highest rates of stress revolved around the possible contraction of the disease and potentially spreading it within their home environment. This finding is also reflected in the qualitative comments when asked as to what the main causes of their stress were, ECT#23 stated: husband was having chemotherapy and baby in the house. Worried about bringing COVID home particularly because one parent had it and children still attending. ECT#23 noted the uncertainty of not knowing if families were abiding by lockdown rules, and thus, placing them at risk, stating [t]he uncertainty of where families had been going … we heard many stories of families breaking lockdown rules and then bringing children in (ECT#23).

Table 4. ECTs’ stress during Stage 3 Lockdowns.

Stress items (Stage 3 Lockdown)	Mean	SD
Supporting children in social distancing	3.42	1.032
Maintaining social distancing with colleagues at work	2.61	1.088
Supporting children to increase their hygiene practices	2.88	.857
Maintaining hygienic standards of the environment at work.	3.52	1.121
The possibility of contracting COVID-19 myself from children, families or other educators.	3.91	1.284
The possibility of contracting COVID-19 myself and spreading it within my home environment.	3.97	1.447
The possibility of spreading COVID-19 to others within my community.	3.67	1.339
Reassuring families of our hygiene and social distancing procedures	3.03	.918
Providing connections to families and children who remained at home.	3.12	1.244
Changes in household income	1.88	1.293

Note: 1 = no stress, 2 = mild stress, 3 = moderate stress, 4 = much stress, and 4 = extreme stress.

Supporting children in social distancing was rated as reflecting a ‘moderate’ amount of stress for ECTs, however this stress was significantly higher for ECTs than non-ECTs. Within the qualitative comments on stress, there were numerous mentions as to the difficulty in maintaining social distancing. For example, ECT#33 stated that it was basically impossible to not go into work or social distance with children. I constantly am aware that I am in contact of close to 60 people a day and wearing a mask is deemed ‘unnecessary’ or children won’t catch it.

It was also found that the number of years’ experience a person had working as an ECT had a strong correlation with the stressor providing connections to families and children who remained at home (r = .57. p < .01). Indicating that experienced ECTs may have found the transitions to online modes of connection stressful and a challenge to implement. Such data was also reflected in the qualitative comments. For example, ECT#27 stated that the committee management gave a lot of pressure to develop programs for home learning packs implying that the shift in pedagogical practices owing to the lockdown created additional stress for ECTs.

Anxiety among ECTs

ECTs showed high anxiety levels during Stage 3 lockdown. In particular, they had highest levels of anxiety before going to work, and anxiety levels dropped after they finished their work (see Table 5). Even though they have different anxiety levels, they have been found to be strongly correlated with each other (see Table 6).

Table 5. Anxiety among ECTs.

Anxiety in Stage 3 Lockdown	Mean	SD
Anticipating going to work	3.15	1.202
At work	3.09	1.284
Once you had left work for the day	2.52	1.302

Note: 1 = not anxious, 2 = mild anxious, 3 = moderate anxious, 4 = highly anxious, and 5 = extremely anxious.

Table 6. Correlation of anxiety among ECTs.

	2	3
Anticipating going to work	.639**	.528**
At work		.457**
Once you had left work for the day

Note: **p < .01, *p < .05.

In regards to causes of anxiety, ECT #32 further stated I felt I had very little protection and was concerned for the health of my family, my workplace was full once it became free of charge and we had to constantly send ill children home. I felt our work was considered babysitting and the government treated us as such. Other comments in the survey reflected similar sentiments coupled with frustration over the inconsistency between how ECEC and school sectors were being supported. Numerous comments reflected this and were exemplified by ECT#13: Facing something unknown, feeling disregarded by state press conferences, feeling dispensable to the government making decisions about closing schools but deeming sessional kinder essential, absorbing the anxiety of others in the workplace.

Retention of ECTs

Table 7 shows ECTs had higher desire to leave the profession after the COVID-19 outbreak, and strong correlation was found between thinking of leaving the profession before and after COVID-19 lockdowns, r = .54, p < .01. ECT#32 wrote I am leaving the industry I have only two weeks left in my current position and ECT#19 explaining their reasoning behind leaving, our anxiety during COVID was due to safety and income. To reduce anxiety post-COVID requires an overhaul of childcare systems and major change to the value of educators.

Table 7. Desire to leave the profession for ECTs prior and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

	Mean	SD	n
leaving the early childhood profession: - Prior to COVID-19 pandemic	3.34	1.335	32
leaving the early childhood profession: - During COVID-19 pandemic	2.50	1.408	30

Note: 1 = definitely yes, 2 = probably yes, 3 = might or might not, 4 = probably not, 5 = definitely not.

Discussion

Findings from this survey identified that the ECTs experienced statistically significant more stress and anxiety than educators during the national Stage Three lockdown. As identified in earlier sections, it is difficult to ‘tease’ out differences between wellbeing of educators compared to ECTs both before and during the pandemic. This is largely due to the use of the umbrella term ‘educator’ in the research. However, we know from research specifically on ECTs that professional recognition is a significant factor that impinges on wellbeing (Irvine et al. 2016; Logan, Cumming, and Wong 2020). ECTs were already struggling for professional recognition pre-pandemic, and therefore, argue that the findings from this survey suggest the pandemic has exacerbated this situation. Knowing this, it is not surprising that ECTs reacted to the Australian government announcements that consistently referred to the sector as an essential service providing ‘childcare’ for frontline workers and other essential service workers. Being positioned as ‘child minders’ in the midst of a pandemic with no regard to how this impacted on their professionalism was an avoidable action by governments. In keeping with this finding, the peak stakeholder Early Childhood Australia (ECA) released a press announcement on the importance of language and how we talk about ECEC as one way to support and advance the profession (Early Childhood Australia 2021).

Our findings indicated interesting differences between ECTs wellbeing in relation to number of years working. Surprisingly, ECTs who had been teaching for longer showed higher levels of stress providing connections to families and children than ECTs with less years in teaching. In contrast to research that shows the first five years of teaching for an ECT is the most stressful (Scharper 2019). However, what this finding aligns with is knowledge of the high demand of emotional labour attached to the work of ECTs, with COVID-19 further heightening this demand (Nagasawa and Tarrant 2020). ECTs also reported higher levels of stress in adapting to teaching in an online environment and that the demands of the technology along with limited connection with children and families were stress inducing.

ECTs were also clearly concerned about their safety, particularly when the science on transmission among young children was still emerging. As noted by ECT#13 there was a sense of being dispensable and undervalued because they were asked to remain on the frontline caring for children when their schoolteacher colleagues rapidly moved to online learning to protect them and reduce transmission. In addition, safety for others was particularly relevant when examining levels of stress and levels of anxiety. Findings highlight that ECTs were asked to work in conditions in which their knowledge and abilities were being challenged. They were asked to manage COVID-safe measures in settings that presented many challenges, noting the difficulties in managing social distancing with young children.

Finally, the addition of managing multiple demands from the personal to job demands added to stress and anxiety. There were family pressures along with management expectations. Highlighting these stressors were comments such as being the expensive employee they would prefer to put me out of work to save money for the company and they only rostered me for hours that entitled them to JobKeeper. I lost $250 per week in income and still expected to run a kinder program despite only working 4.5 hours a day (ECT#19). I had very little protection and was concerned for the health of my family. My workplace was full of children when the government made it free. It felt like our work was considered babysitting and the government treated us as such (ECT#32). Prior to the pandemic workloads were already impacting on wellbeing of the workforce (Irvine et al. 2016). ECTs were already time pressured due to regulatory demands (Nuttall and Thomas 2015). Reforms from 2009 increased regulatory demands for ECTs as they are predominantly placed in a leadership positions making them responsible for quality improvement in their centres (Nuttall et al. 2022). Attending to existing demands COVID has only added to them and so it could be argued it was inevitable that levels of stress and anxiety would increase.

Implications and limitations

Australia’s ECEC system is complex, and thus the wellbeing of the workforce is also complex (Cumming, Wong, and Logan 2021). One complexity is teasing out the different needs of ECTs and educators, and this paper contributes to this need. The findings present a picture when understood through a systems wellbeing framework brings to light how wellbeing is more than just an individual phenomenon but rather is in interaction with a multitude of factors. Governments were focused on the urgent need to support frontline workers by ensuring ‘childcare’ remained open. They recognised the crisis unfolding and the need to keep frontline workforces operating, and thus, the ECEC profession was required to remain open despite rapidly falling numbers of children attending (Duffy 2020). However, such actions failed to see the ramifications it would have both on the overall profession and on individual ECTs wellbeing. The struggle for professional recognition pre-pandemic previously identified in the research but, what this survey serves to illustrate is that government responses along with management seemed to have exacerbated this situation. Our survey included only 33 ECTs; therefore, with this small sample size we are cautious here in making this claim. We also note the limitation of self-reported statements in relation to validity problems acknowledging that from a methodological perspective we know that participants can over or under report their situation on such statements. Further large-scale research is required to gauge the long-term implications COVID-19 has had on the profession that should include quantitative methods that can overcome these limitations such as combining self-reported data with other data such as behaviour and psychological measures. But we are able to say that the 33 ECTs surveyed, there was a consistent theme of feeling undervalued. There was also evidence of those who had been longer in the profession were more stressed. This is something also worthy of further research to identify factors causing this to support ongoing effects to address workforce attrition. But knowing one of the Australian workforce strategies is to increase the number of ECTs then our research also points to what Souto-Manning and Melvin (2022) emphasise – the pandemic has exacerbated wellbeing concerns of ECTs highlighting a need to take the wellbeing of ECTs seriously.

Taking a systems theoretical framework to analysis we see that the findings have identified how individual wellbeing of ECTs is always in an interplay with responses from stakeholders such as government and management. We argue that our findings align with other research that has taken a system approach to understanding wellbeing in ECEC. For example, Cumming et al.’s (2021) work has shown that wellbeing is intricately connected to the quality of their work environments and for Australia to achieve the policy ambition of building a high-quality ECEC workforce then a high-quality work environment is essential. We therefore argue that a systems approach is what is needed and where wellbeing is understood from this holistic perspective rather than it being solely an individual responsibility that can be seen in research arguing that ECTs need to be resilient, self-motivated to their own continuous improvement, and willing to take on challenges (cf: Eadie et al. 2021). Our systems theoretical framing is also in keeping with Australia’s ten-year ECEC workforce strategy (ACECQA 2021a) that acknowledges that a system approach is required if targets are to be achieved.

Conclusion

Australia’s national ECEC policy at this point in time has a strong focus on workforce participation along with future workforce sustainability. To imagine the political talk shifting in the midst of a global pandemic might have been expecting too much. Therefore, the findings in this study that show a strong correlation in ECTs’ desire to leave the profession from pre-pandemic to during-pandemic conditions are maybe not surprising. But this finding does have significance for the ECEC workforce post-pandemic. It adds to the literature on what we know and identifies what we need to prioritise both from research and practical perspectives. Immediate action could be as easy as recognising that ‘words matter’ when we speak of the ECEC workforce (Early Childhood Australia 2021). We suggest this includes how we name our ECTs as ‘teachers’ that distinguishes them from our educators. If we want ECTs to feel valued and seen rather than undervalued, then how they are spoken of in the public is critical. As the ECA argues, everyone has a role to play in supporting and building a high-quality ECEC where wellbeing issues are given the attention they deserve. Therefore, in conclusion we stand with a number of academics who have actively spoken out on various media platforms declaring that the sector is in a state of crisis e.g (Curtis 2022; Duffy 2022; Rogers 2022): and in doing so we add our voice urging that the wellbeing of ECTs be given the serious attention that it deserves. We cannot continue to shed the sector of ECTs as currently being experienced (ACECQA 2021a, 2021b). It is only through a holistic system approach that ECT wellbeing can be given the attention it rightly deserves.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In Australia, the term ‘educator’ is used in the National Quality Framework (NQF) as a collective term that captures both the educators and ECTs. Educators are vocational qualified and ECTs are Bachelor or higher qualified.

2. We use the term ECEC workforce in line with Australia’s regulatory body ACECQA that captures all educators working in ECEC.

3. In Australia, to work in ECEC you must either have a vocational qualification of either a Certificate III or Diploma to work as an educator and a Bachelor or higher qualification to work as an Early Childhood Teacher (ECT) See: https://www.acecqa.gov.au/qualifications/qualification-requirements..

4. The COAG (2009) report states the target of achieving workforce reform by 2020 so that it can ‘achieve the 2020 vision for children’ and included implementing ‘new and innovative approaches to training early childhood education teachers’ (Grealy et al. 2010).

5. [authors’ university] Human Research Ethics Committee Approval No: 25246.

6. Department of Education.