Australia, May 5, 2009 – Australia fails the early childhood test conducted by Save the Children. The country currently ranks third of last of the 25 test takers.

Now in its 10th year, the State of the World’s Mothers report from the Save the Children Fund found that among developed nations, Australia was below par in its early childhood development report card. It is only ahead of Canada and Ireland.

The report states that Australia only met two of ten benchmarks. One benchmark is providing subsidized and regulated childcare services for a quarter of children aged less than three years old. The other passing benchmark is having 50 percent of early education staff with relevant tertiary qualifications.

Failed benchmarks, on the other hand, include having priority plans for disabled children, subsidising early education services, provision for a year’s parental leave at half-pay and spending one percent of GDP on childhood services.

According to Save the Children Chief Executive Suzanne Dvorak, only Australia and the US failed to provide paid parental leaves. “Save the Children Australia urges the Federal Government to introduce a universal paid maternity leave scheme when it hands down the Federal Budget on May 12,” she adds.

In April 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would like to develop “one-stop-shop” early childhood centres that combined maternal and child health, long-day care and preschool centres. However, it is yet to be funded.

Save the Children also found that only two-thirds of Australia’s four-year-olds were enrolled in pre-school, compared to almost all children in European countries such as France, Italy and Spain.

In terms of GDP allocation, the organization found that Australia on spends only 0.4 per cent of GDP on childcare and preschool education. Top-ranked countries such as Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and France each spent at least one percent of their GDP on childcare.

Other countries considered falling behind on the report card are Mexico, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. However, they were still ranked higher than Australia.

Source:
news.com.au