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The ‘Universal Access to early childhood education’ agenda in Australia: rationales and instruments

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Abstract

This paper explores the Australian Government’s ‘Universal Access’ policy in the early childhood education sector. Using data from selected policy texts, and drawing on interpretive policy analysis, the paper specifically examines rationales underlying the Universal Access agenda and instruments put in place to operationalize it and problematizes the framing of the equity agenda. The findings show that economic, educational and social goals inform the policy initiative; and targeted funding, teacher professionalization and performance monitoring serve as instruments in the enactment of the initiatives. A closer analysis of the texts also reveals that the Universal Access agenda is characterized by discursive shifts in the framing of equity goals, issue-omissions, contradictions of agendas, and inconsistencies of categories of disadvantage.

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Notes

  1. See https://www.mychild.gov.au/agenda/universal-access. Although in recent times public and private investment in Australia’s ECEC sector has grown significantly [e.g., during the 2014/15 financial years, the Australian Government’s expenditure in the sector reached over seven billion dollars (O’Connell et al. 2016)], Australia’s spending on ECEC as a proportion of GDP still is below the OECD average (OECD 2015).

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  1. School of Education, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds Campus, Geelong, VIC, 3220, Australia

    Tebeje Molla & Andrea Nolan

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  1. Tebeje Molla
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  2. Andrea Nolan
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Correspondence to Tebeje Molla.

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Molla, T., Nolan, A. The ‘Universal Access to early childhood education’ agenda in Australia: rationales and instruments. Educ Res Policy Prac 18, 1–16 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-017-9224-0

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