Recent safety failures have triggered tighter regulation in early childhood education and care. But compliance alone cannot deliver quality. Real reform begins with professionalising the workforce.

Australia’s early childhood sector is at a turning point. A troubling slate of safety and quality incidents in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings has prompted governments to reinforce incident reporting, digital-safety protocols, and governance standards.

These steps are necessary and welcome, but they are not sufficient. Regulation and compliance alone cannot deliver the transformation we need. The focus must go deeper, into the heart of early childhood education: the educators themselves. If we are serious about eliminating risk and lifting quality, we must move from simply strengthening regulatory frameworks to truly professionalising the workforce: attracting, training, rewarding, and retaining the best people in early childhood education and care.

Regulation, standards, inspections, and compliance matter, and the NQF and associated systems provide a strong foundation. But tightening rules is not enough if the human, relational underpinning of early childhood care is weak. Providers with higher staff turnover, more casual employment, fewer experienced educators, and lower wages tend to have lower quality ratings. Staffing, qualifications, job security and pay matter at least as much as checklist compliance.

When educators are under-resourced and underpaid, quality erodes: less experience, weaker relationships with children, higher turnover, lower morale, and greater risk.

So while the new reforms are essential, they are necessary but not sufficient. Without addressing the workforce challenge – how to attract the smartest people, raise professional standing, build........

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