Universal Three-Year-Old Preschool

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier advise how many early childhood teachers will enter the system by 2032 as a result of the introduction of the three-year 0 to 5 teaching degree?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:10): Can I ask the deputy leader to repeat that question, if he will?

The SPEAKER: Would you mind repeating the question?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I am happy to, sir. I was asking whether the Premier or the minister can advise how many early childhood teachers will enter the system by 2032 as a result of the introduction of the three-year teaching degree for 0 to 5.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I will take that on notice. It will depend, of course, largely on uptake as well. That will depend on how many people we can encourage to take up the course, and there is a lot of work that we are going to have to do to do that. What we have brought in place, or are in the process of bringing in place, is instead of the four-year degree that was birth to eight—which from memory I think only had about a 25 per cent focus on the birth to five years, or birth to four years—we are instead doing a birth to five degree, which will take three years.

So it is a shorter degree, which of course will help us in terms of getting people through that course. Of course, it will have a much bigger focus on those early years, which I think is really important, because one of the main reasons that we have announced the rollout of three-year-old preschool is that we know that if we are to get those levels of developmental vulnerability down—and we are at 23.8 per cent here in South Australia, which is above the national average—to 15 per cent by 2042, as was set out by the royal commissioner, three-year-old preschool will play a very important role in doing that, in our ability to make sure that we can build the workforce.

In terms of the specific question asked by the member for Morialta, how many we actually have on board by 2032 will in no small way depend on how successful we are in encouraging other people to take it up as a profession. As I said in my answer to the last question from the member for Morialta, it is a difficult environment in which to do that at the moment, when more so, I think, than ever before in our state's history there are job opportunities in a lot of areas.

A lot of that work is as well paid and a lot of it is better paid than it might be in the early years sector and probably doesn't come with some of the complexities and heartaches that that job does. But we know that people who work in the early years are incredibly committed people. They don't do it for money. They do it because they know they have an incredible ability in that job to influence the lives of young people.

We know that 90 per cent of the brain development of a young person is done by the age of five, and if we don't get that right it contributes significantly to those levels of developmental vulnerability, whether it be cognitive or language or social or emotional or physical. It means that when they sit down in their reception class on the first day they are already starting behind, and we are playing catch-up, essentially, for the rest of that child's time in their primary and secondary schooling.

That's why we are doing it. Part of the effectiveness of three-year-old preschool is that it is designed to be teacher-led play-based learning. That comes back to the member for Morialta's question around teachers, and of course attracting those early childhood teachers is a key thing. How many exactly we have by 2032 will be guided by how successful we are in putting things in place to encourage people to take it up, but the changes we have already made around changing from a four-year degree to a three-year degree will help that, and there will be more initiatives, I know, that Kim Little and her team are planning to announce around how we can attract that workforce and how we can retain it.