Sep 24, 2026
Profile: Tasia Camacho, Principal Lecturer, TAFE SA Centre of Excellence in Early Childhood Education and Care featured in The Australian Tafe Teacher, August 2026.
TAFE Centres of Excellence foster innovation, partnerships and critical skills development. Funded through the five-year National Skills Agreement, 20 centres have been planned to open around Australia between 2024 and 2029, with 16 currently announced.
In South Australia, the TAFE SA Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Centre of Excellence was established in July 2024. The centre, which opened at the Adelaide City campus, partners with educators, universities, sector stakeholders, and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to co-design training that reflects real-world needs, supports inclusive practice and strengthens pathways. This includes consultation organisations such as HumanAbility, Early Childhood Australia, SNAICC, the South Australian Office for Early Childhood Development, employer bodies, Jobs and Skills Councils and the AEU.
Centre of Excellence lecturer Tasia Camacho provides subject matter expertise to the Centre of Excellence, as part of a team of experts who work together to investigate, design, pilot and assess projects to further educational programs in the sector with a national purview. “The Centre of Excellence is a hub around innovation,” says Camacho.
“We’re educators, researchers and sector leaders, working alongside our partners and industry to design evidence-informed training and resources for the early childhood education and care sector.”
While the centre doesn’t deliver training directly, the team at the Centre of Excellence works alongside the TAFE SA’s Children Services and Education program team, which delivers ECEC qualifications at surrounding TAFE SA campuses, meeting fortnightly.
One of the first programs created was the free taster course Kickstart Your Future: An Introduction to Careers in Early Childhood Education and Care in Australia, which Camacho says aims to improve understanding of ECEC careers and provide accessible, realistic pathways into the sector, helping to build a strong and future-ready workforce.
The six-hour online course has had more than 1200 (current) students enrol and is now being incorporated into other TAFE institutes around the country.
"It was designed for potential entrants to the course to inform themselves about what the sector is about, the different roles available and pathways available to them,” she says.
“While they focus on the training, we are helping to shape the future of training,” she says. “Centre of Excellence looks at what the sector needs next – shaping innovative training, strengthening capability and ensuring the workforce is prepared for national priorities. Initiatives are tested and evaluated through a structured pilot program, implemented at selected demonstrator sites’.”Three initiatives have so far been piloted, with others underway this year, including ‘earn while you learn’-type pathways, a free taster course, a mentoring program and an autism program. These are built through research, and consultation with the ECEC sector via advisory groups. Stakeholders provide guidance, test new and emerging ideas, and ensure the initiatives remain relevant, responsive and aligned with sector priorities.
“Everything has an evaluation framework – an overarching evaluation framework and a delivery evaluation,” says Camacho. “Reflection is always part of what we do; before, during and after and we devise a methodology that suits the cohort.”
The Effective Mentoring in Early Childhood Education and Care Initiative was developed to respond to workforce pressures in the ECEC sector where educators are increasingly transitioning into leadership roles early in their careers due to workforce shortages. “Through our research, we identified mentoring as a critical support mechanism for emerging leaders,” says Camacho. Exploring deeper, the team found a need to upskill experienced educators and leaders to become mentors, and to support new entrants in the workforce. “So, we designed a 10-week mentoring program, which has been piloted and is being evaluated at the moment,” she says – explaining the initiative is facilitated online over a series of training sessions, interspersed with guided reflection sessions.
Another program, Introduction to Autism for Early Childhood Educators, was identified as a need through the South Australian government and supported by feedback from within the sector for increased awareness and understanding, to support children and families, and to build a culture of inclusion. “It’s specifically designed and developed for early entry educators, particularly for students undertaking the Certificate III,” she says. “We piloted that at the end of 2025… and are now supporting the TAFE SA program team to deliver the Introduction to Autism for Early Childhood Educators to the current group of Certificate III students."
Part of this evaluation is informing the development of a unit of competency, so it will be two things: a professional learning product for existing educators, but also part of the Certificate III qualification.” Organisations such as Reframing Autism and Anglicare helped design the training product. Camacho says no initiative is created without consultation: each one has an advisory group that helps to shape the research and provides feedback along the way.
“We have subject matter experts within our team internally, as well as externally who help us review the projects and provide specialist advice. It’s amazing when you reflect on how much we’ve achieved in such a short amount of time,” she says.
“With the funding, it gives us an opportunity to create innovation, which when you’re running training courses and delivering qualifications, you don’t often have the time to research and innovate. It’s giving people permission to do this differently.”
Camancho says "It’s a once-in-a generational opportunity to see this level of financial commitment to early childhood education and care, which will benefit the sector not only in the short term but well into the future. “
"A more skilled and stable workforce is critical to children, families and the community,” she says. “We’re finally seeing recognition of the importance of these years; even though there’s been so much research, we’re finally seeing governments putting money into reform and saying it has to happen within distinct timeframes.”
She says the Centre’s four-year remit is focused on building meaningful careers, creating more relevant ways of studying the qualifications that are connected to real work, and adjusting skillsets to meet community needs.
“Children’s needs are different in a lot of ways; there’s more need for strategies to work with neurodivergent children and children with different needs but also to maintain play and fun. It’s not all just about safety and compliance. Our Centre of Excellence can help students to access stronger pathways as well into meaningful, long-term careers. We want people to be attracted in, to stay in, and to have a long-term career that they enjoy.”
We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which TAFE SA stands.
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