With Laura Cunningham, Senior Research Analyst, Centre of Excellence

You've been with the Centre since December 2024, what excited you about joining the team and contributing to our work in support of the Early Childhood Education and Care workforce?

I'm a big believer in the value of education. It just opens so many possibilities to individuals, and I've seen that in my own life. This role as senior researcher, provides an opportunity to contribute to improving outcomes for younger children through quality early learning and I was drawn to the dual research and evaluation focus of the role.

You wear a number of hats in the Centre of Excellence, both as our senior researcher and the lead on the development of a new early childhood teacher qualification. Can you tell us a little about both roles?

As the Senior researcher, I'm responsible for the research and evaluation for the Centre. In practice this means ensuring our products are research and evidence-based and informed by current developments.

The evaluation component is focused on ensuring quality of products that we develop at the Centre, that the products we develop and pilot are contributing to improved outcomes for learners and uplifting knowledge and practice across the sector. 

In terms of my work on the development of a vocational degree for early childhood teaching, there's an ongoing shortage of teachers and educators in the Australian ECEC workforce. 

The creation of a vocational degree opens another avenue to attract and retain quality teachers in the sector. 

Vocational degrees are relatively new to the Australian qualification landscape; can you explain a little bit more about the importance of work integrated learning and what this means in practice for learners? 

The Centre’s decision to develop a vocational degree is grounded in research that shows that employment-based learning, or work-integrated learning improves the quality of teachers. 

We are embedding professional practise throughout the degree, and that is intended to address some of the skill gaps that have been identified both through our engagement with the sector and through the research.  

The dual focus on technical knowledge and application of skills within the workplace of vocational degrees is why they are so well suited to being delivered through an apprenticeship model.

We have a lot of diploma qualified staff in the sector that may not necessarily have had the opportunity to go on and do further study, it’s quite hard to take a step back to study without the financial certainty a degree apprenticeship offers particularly if you're trying to do it full time. 

Ultimately, we see the qualification reducing the barriers to study for experienced educators looking to progress their career.  

You mentioned that the new degree will be delivered through an apprenticeship model, has this been done before?

No, there haven’t been teaching apprenticeships in Australia before. We are closely watching the introduction of Early Childhood Teacher apprenticeships in the UK and drawing on evidence from the United States, where apprenticeship models have been established since 2021.

It would be fair to say, that when we have been speaking to stakeholders, there is often initial concern around the quality and professionalism of the early childhood teachers that would be produced by an apprenticeship model.  What did your research find when you looked at similar models for primary and secondary teachers? How have these findings ultimately shaped the degree the Centre of Excellence is currently developing?  

There has been an instinctive concern from some stakeholders about the quality and professionalism of early childhood teachers that might be produced through an apprenticeship model.

In developing this degree, however, our focus has been firmly on uplifting the teaching profession and strengthening how early childhood education, in particular, is recognised and valued in society. We will continue to emphasise this professional focus as we work through stakeholder concerns. 

Across the broader education landscape, higher degree apprenticeships are increasingly being adopted across universities and VET providers in a range of fields, and these qualifications are consistently producing high calibre candidates.

Internationally, research shows that employment-based models almost always produce graduates who are at least as skilled as, and often more skilled than, those from traditional university pathways. Models that include extended work integrated learning, particularly those incorporating a co-teaching year, also demonstrate higher completion rates and stronger graduate capability. 

This body of evidence has directly informed the design of the degree the Centre of Excellence is developing, particularly our emphasis on work integrated learning and clear role progression through a co teaching model. 

I know you have prioritised play-based learning throughout the degree, what are the other key focus areas embedded across the degree? What led you to these key focus areas and how were these shaped by sector feedback?

In scoping the degree, we undertook both a review of the literature and we also went out and engaged with the sector to understand the concerns and where skills and knowledge gaps were identified in recent university graduates. Play-based learning was one of the skills gaps the sector really emphasised, it rightly underpins all our different curriculum areas because we were repeatedly being told that a lot of current graduate's struggle to apply the theory.  

There are a number of other focus areas embedded across the degree. Child Safety is a foundational element of the curriculum and is introduced early, before being reinforced throughout the degree.

We have also built on our Introduction to Autism for Early Childhood Educators professional learning course from an earlier initiative, with the insights informing and strengthening how inclusive practice is embedded across the early childhood teaching degree.

Laura, thank you for your time, and going into such depth on the work involved in the degree. One last question, when can we expect to see degree apprenticeships being available for Early Childhood Teachers, what are the next steps in progressing this important initiative? 

There are several regulatory processes need to go through before we can pilot the degree apprenticeship.  

We need to get approval from the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) in the first instance. We will then look at getting approval from ACECQA, the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, for the qualification to be recognised as an approved initial teacher education program. 

Beyond that we need to work with the teacher regulatory bodies in each state and territory jurisdiction.