Early Childhood issues addressed in AEU submission

The AEU has made a submission to the National Professional Standards for Teachers Consultation. Included in the submission is a section on Early Childhood Education.

"Any national professional standards for teachers must encompass Early Childhood Education
(ECE) as much as for other years of schooling. Furthermore, this must be made explicit in the
Standards.

With the rollout of Federal Government supported universal access to a preschool education
delivered by four year degree qualified early childhood teachers, the role of such teaching will
become more important in the Australian education system. ECE teachers have equivalent
pre-service education to teachers of other years and play an equally important role in the
education of children. It is vital that they be included in national teaching standards. The
fundamental standards and issues relating to all teachers also relate to teachers of ECE. The
language of the Standards should be broad enough to be applicable to all teachers and should
be inclusive of ECE pedagogy. The importance of ECE teachers should be acknowledged in
the preamble and elsewhere.

Similarly it is also important to consider early childhood teachers in the same context as
school teachers if the Standards are to be utilised for the purposes of accreditation of preservice
teacher education courses and initial teacher registration."

Follow this link to download the submission in full.