More than 2,500 three year-olds attending over 250 education and care services in Victoria and Queensland are now part of Australia’s largest ever early childhood education study. The E4Kids study, led by the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education in partnership with the Queensland University of Technology, the Queensland and Victorian Governments, Royal Children’s Hospital (Melbourne), the University of Toronto and the Institute of Education, London, aims to help improve early childhood education and care in Australia.
Fifty researchers started working with children attending a wide range of childcare settings at the end of March.
The five-year international study will explore how Australian early childhood education and care programs contribute to children’s learning and development. The results will inform the $3.3bn invested annually in early childhood education and care.
The children involved have been chosen to represent a broad cross-section of Australian society. Approximately 35 per cent of participants are classified as ‘disadvantaged’, approximately 25 per cent of Victorian participants are from regional areas and approximately ten per cent of Queensland participants are from remote areas.
Professor Collette Tayler, Chair of Early Childhood Education and Care at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, is leading the study. She believes its results will play an important role in State and Federal Government policy.
“Early childhood education and care is receiving increasing attention from the Australian State and Federal Governments, and that is to be welcomed,” she says.
“We know from studies in North America and the UK in particular that quality early childhood education and care programs increase children’s attainment levels throughout their education and into adulthood. And similarly, lack of a quality program can predict poor progress.
“But we don’t yet know what program elements make a significant impact on a child’s learning and development. This study will discover what these are, enabling policy makers and educators to make evidence-based decisions into the future.”
The study is partly funded by a $2.2m Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the largest ARC grant ever awarded to an education study. The study’s full title is Effective Early Education Experiences.
