{"id":60642,"date":"2025-03-17T10:47:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T23:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/?p=60642"},"modified":"2025-07-28T16:54:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T06:54:26","slug":"statement-on-four-corners-reporting-on-early-education-safety-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/archive\/statement-on-four-corners-reporting-on-early-education-safety-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"STATEMENT ON FOUR CORNERS’ REPORTING ON EARLY EDUCATION SAFETY ISSUES"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding today’s reporting by Four Corners on serious safety issues within the early education and care sector, the statement below is attributable to United Workers Union’s National President, Jo Schofield:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reports by ABC\u2019s Four Corners today are placing a much-needed focus on the systemic issues created by for-profit companies in early childhood education and care.<\/p>\n

Educators, United Workers Union and parents are united in wanting an early childhood education and care sector that gives children the best start in life.<\/p>\n

Educators across the sector are familiar with some of the issues that have been raised in the reporting, including understaffing due to a failure to attract and retain staff, largely because of low wages.<\/p>\n

However most educators\u2019 experience has been that educators in for-profit providers face greater pressures than their peers in not-for-profit providers.<\/p>\n

This can result in higher turnover and educators being placed in situations where it is hard, if not impossible, to provide the quality of education and care needed by families.<\/p>\n

United Workers Union’s early educators will be shocked and saddened by the experiences shared by parents in today\u2019s reports, and no parent should have to go through what has been reported.<\/p>\n

These same educators will also see the issues as a betrayal of the safety processes and considerations they embed in their daily routines to ensure children\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

The reporting raises questions about the leniency of a waiver system that allows high percentages of centres \u2013 almost one in five in recent years \u2013 to operate without a full complement of staff.<\/p>\n

United Workers Union has repeatedly raised the issue of educator shortages impacting the quality of education and care children receive, the issue of for-profit centres putting profits before children, and high levels of staffing waivers across the sector.<\/p>\n

United Workers Union acknowledges the Federal Labor Government\u2019s move to stabilise the sector by increasing educators\u2019 pay by 15 per cent, which has already resulted in improved retention and hiring outcomes, and is addressing some of the understaffing plaguing the sector.<\/p>\n

A sector that has appropriate numbers of educators also starts to remove the sector’s reliance on waivers, and is a vital first step in addressing some of the safety issues being aired today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding today’s reporting by Four Corners on serious safety issues within the early education and care sector, the statement below is attributable to United Workers Union’s National President, Jo Schofield: Reports by ABC\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60644,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60642\/revisions\/60644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}