The minister for local government and community services, Tony Simpson, is considering a ban on swimming pools at family day care centres after a 2-year-old boy named Lachlan drowned in a Perth suburb earlier this month. “As the minister responsible for the licensing of ...

The Turnbull Government will provide $840 million in funding for children to have access to 15 hours a week of high-quality preschool education in the year before they begin school. The education minister, Senator Simon Birmingham, announced that the government has ...

NSW community preschools will receive $45.5 million in state government funding so more children can attend in the year before they commence school. The minister for early childhood education, Leslie Williams, said this would boost the number of young children from low-income ...

Tasmania’s Hodgman Government has acknowledged the rights of children ahead of new legislation determining the role of the Commissioner for Children that will be tabled this month. The new legislation will expand the role of the commissioner. Children and young people’s views will be ...

New occupational therapy program Little Hands has ended its first year with excellent results. The program’s focus is to help children learn gross and fine motor skills, such as holding a pencil, cutting with scissors and “being able to do a ...

Kentish Lifelong Learning and Care is the first family day-care service in the Northern Territory to win an excellent rating – the highest available – under the National Quality Framework. Carla Northam, chief executive of Family Day Care Australia, said the rating recognises ...

A new report has ranked Australia at the bottom among OECD countries in education enrolment rates for 3-year-olds. The OECD report, titled Starting Strong IV – Monitoring Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, also found Australia had the lowest expenditure on early education. ...

Early Learning Association Australia (ELAA) has brought together a group of peak bodies, service providers, community sector organisations and research institutions to develop The Ten Principles for an Early Childhood Education State, a framework to guide the Victorian Government’s reform ...