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In Conversation: Meet our Education Manager Marisa Unerkov

Sep 25, 2025

Marisa, tell us a bit about yourself. What's been your journey into this role and how has your time at TAFE SA shaped how you approach to education and leadership? 

I've worked in education for over 20 years. During that time, most of my work has focused on teaching training and education qualifications. Most recently my role has been to provide specialist advice and consultation across Education Operations at TAFE SA. This has involved leading excellence in contemporary teaching and learning practice by fostering innovation and advising, supporting and mentoring Educators.

Across my career, the common thread is the joy experienced when you see people achieve great things. In education you’re connected to a person’s journey, witnessing the stepping stones they take to achieve a qualification and supporting colleagues and students alike to break down barriers to enable them to achieve. That’s the most rewarding part. So, when I think about leadership, it’s about supporting others around me to learn, grow and achieve. 

The early childhood sector is facing both significant challenges and exciting opportunities. What do you see as the biggest priorities for educators and providers right now? 


I think at this moment the priority is to support the sector through a time where there is increased scrutiny on educators, teachers and providers. The sector's filled with passionate and skilled educators and advocates whose professionalism, skill and pedagogical approach to early learning has supported not only thousands of children but many early year educators and teachers in the profession. The priority for the Centre of Excellence remains on delivering high quality training and solutions to attract caring professionals into the sector and support their career progression to enable them to build long, fulfilling careers.

We want to support early childhood educators to progress in their career past a Certificate III. A Certificate III is a great grounding for somebody entering the sector and we’re hoping that we can work with sector partners to encourage people to take on higher level qualifications so that they can strengthen the depth and breadth of their understanding of pedagogies that support and enhance children’s growth. By collaborating and investing in qualification pathways we hope to see improvements both in confidence and understanding, and for that confidence to also be bolstered in the families of children who access early childhood services. 

How do you see vocational education evolving to meet the needs of the workforce, and where does innovation fit into the picture? 

Vocational education will continue to evolve as the early childhood sector and workforce evolves. We are already seeing requests for changes to the way that training is undertaken, there is a higher uptake in people attending courses that blend in-person and online delivery in preference to fully in-person courses. 
We will see an increase in innovative approaches to supporting the pathways for early childhood teachers. There are models used internationally that support higher apprenticeships. We are exploring how these could work in Australia, alongside alternative entry pathways such as a workplace-based vocational degrees with an Early Childhood Teacher outcome. 

When considering the changing skill development needs across an early childhood educators’ profession, I think that we will see an increase in targeted professional learning for various stages of an educator's career journey. For example, we are currently piloting two courses, one develops mentoring skills in experienced educators to allow them to confidently support the development of educators in their service. The second course supports educators to develop an understanding of autism in an early childhood setting. 

Simulated learning environments offer yet another innovative approach that make qualifications more accessible. We are excited at the potential of partnering with TAFEs across Australia to use their facilities to pilot approaches. While the use of simulated environments is not new, the environments are innovating in response to technological advancements and the evolving needs of the sector. They provide students an opportunity to practice and hone their skills in a safe way before undertaking a placement in services, promoting an increased quality of students entering the sector. 

Collaboration is at the heart of the Centre’s work. What role do partnerships with the sector, governments, TAFEs and the community play in uplifting effective education and training in early childhood education and care? 

Collaboration and partnership are at the heart of the Centre’s work and is critical to our success. When I think about any of the projects that we're undertaking, the sector’s voice and expertise is incredible, and we must use and build on that. Part of how we’re doing that is through discovery pieces to see where the pain points are and how we work together on solutions that are scalable. Having a national focus, we are interested in solutions that can work at a local level and have enough flexibility in them to be able to be used in different jurisdictions.

An example of our collaboration is through mechanisms like the TAFE ECEC Centre of Excellence network. The network has representation from each state and territory and offers a space for sharing of ideas while providing the Centre with vital insights on national trends and issues. In time we hope the network will become a space where the Centre can showcase and implement initiatives, like our Career Taster Course and Mentoring pilot. 


Your role involves thinking about how to support educators across Australia. How do you think the Centre of Excellence can better meet the training and workforce needs of regional and rural communities? 

We continue to engage, explore and consider what others have trialled, what has worked in certain regions and communities and consider whether we could broaden the reach of those strategies. It is not always about reinventing, for us it may be about shining a light on what is working well and thinking about how we could scale this work through national collaboration. This is happening more often than not. The work we’re thinking through around advancing a Vocational Degree and degree apprenticeship is one way the barriers unique to rural and remote students could be addressed. The ability for people to earn while they learn is key to this. 

Another avenue is ensuring the right supports are in place for regional and remote communities, so educators and services feel like there’s connectedness. That could be as simple as providing a collaborative space where educators could share with other educators from other regions, reducing isolation. So, beyond the educational pathways these sorts of ideas could improve workplace culture, workforce retention in regional and remote areas leading to improved outcomes for children in those areas too.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which TAFE SA stands.


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