Exploration Into Childcare Sector In Australia - Research Essay: Topic, Significance.

An exploration into childcare sector in Australia - Research Proposal Topic

Discuss about the Exploration into Childcare Sector in Australia.

The research proposal topic on which this particular proposal has been done is “An exploration into childcare sector in Australia”.

This specified business proposal puts an emphasis on the research topic “An exploration into childcare sector in Australia”. It has been found that since a decade, the childcare sector has started to develop and thus it also expanded much in the country. The cause and the method for growth of the particular sector therefore are considered as an interesting research topic. Thus, the intention of this research proposal is to determine the reasons for which the particular industry of childcare expands to large extent with the passage of time[1]. In addition to this, the process by which this childcare sector has been evolved and expanded has also been analyzed here. For detailed analysis, this business research will be performed with the aim to find out the probable information about childcare centers of Australia (in major areas). Additionally, in this proposal, information will also be gathered from the potential investors with the aim to set childcare centers in chief areas of the country.

During 1970s, Commonwealth directly got included in the childcare funding and thus it focuses on the provisions of services for those families who are needy and working[2]. The aim behind this was to put importance on the activity of childcare, especially for those, whose both or either or parents are working. Nonetheless, in present days, the intention has been changed and has been shifted towards providing childcare services at different scales of subsidy to both on-working and working parents. Moreover, its aim has also been transformed to provide services to the relatively less needy personnel. As a result, it can be said that investment in childcare industry is considered as a significant aspect with time as it has been found that demand as well as institutions for providing childcare services have also been increased.

• In which parts of Australia, people are more eligible for attaining childcare services on the basis of their ages?
• What are the reasons for constant growth of childcare sector in Australia with time passage?
• Which regions of Australia are more suitable for operating the Childcare Centers successfully?
• Which level of income allows the parents to provide childcare to their kids?
• What percentage of individuals of Australia is capable to pay for childcare services to their kids?

According to the earlier researchers, the childcare centers were first developed for launching various comprehensive programs along with aim to learn the children between ages 0-5 years. The evolution of the childcare centers occurs for many years to understand the requirement of the service. Thus, understanding of the aspect that hard working parents require to serve quality education to their kids is an important factor[3]. It has also been found that certain parents map to chase their own career and also to bring up their kids in disciplined manner by accepting the assistance of the childcare centers.     

Background of the Research Topic

Opined to previous researchers, a detailed analysis of the history assists the individuals to understand the current provisions better and the advantages earned by the government of the nation and affordability of its residents. The earlier researchers stated that the childcare centers were first developed during the time period of Second World War. It was established to provide facility to the women of that period, as used to keep their kids in the childcare centers and they themselves used to went in the battle field for participate actively in the war. Thus, former investigator argued that the childcare centers were first established to look after the kids who used to fight for their nation. However, in later days, the government along with the investing funds invested in the childcare centers, whereby they feeds remain exempted particularly for kids.

As rightly stated by the earlier researchers, the centers of childcare differ from one society to another as determined by the demand and the history. Therefore, there are certain variations that are based on provided traditions and these involve Fredric Froebel and Maria Montessori. Thus, the Common Wealth Government intended to set required standard called National Standards for the Centre Based Long Day Care with the passage of time. However, it aligns with the Commonwealth fund that line up with the National Childcare Accreditation Council that controls and manages the childcare centers.

There are various agencies, which serve potential data about the childcare centers, so it provides detailed data about the supply of care centers. This needs location and kids’ consideration; especially those take developmental initiatives and conquer caring from kids. This occurs for the improvement of the employees who have been employed for look after the children.                   

The expense of the childcare is qualified for those parents who gain Childcare benefits as well as Childcare rebates from the government subsidies of Australia. It can be said that this particular theoretical underpinnings put focus on childcare affordability and quality analysis that also includes fees, monetary assistance and approach of cost gaining flexibility to childcare[4]. Moreover, it can be said that this helps to earn time series regarding information that is represented for bringing change to the centers.

As per the report of Productivity Commission, there are accessibility and affordability to certain key issues. Moreover, the Government of Australia has been found to spend above $ 7 billion in order to support those families that easily gets access to affordable and quality service of childcare. This is an important factor for the taxpayer resources to spent the most appropriate manner to enable the working parents to stay at their work and also to get their kids live relatively better life by providing education. According to the research, it has been found that over 1.57 million children of Australia go to the childcare centers.       

Significance of the business

The growth rate of the childcare centers in Australia has found to get increased by around 77 % in the period from 1996 to 2011. In addition, the formal childcare percentage also increased from 13.4% to 23.7 %[5]. However, the informal childcare centers provide over 38.6 % of the kids of the age group 12 years by the family. Investigators stated that about 26 % of all kids are took care by grandparents. Moreover, the Federal Government expects to spend more than $ 7 billion on the service of childcare. As per the budget, above $ 6 billion is considered as childcare benefits and rebate[6].      

All the childcare centers of Australia are chiefly supported by the plan of straight federal expenditure of childcare to the operators and families. It is counted as the process of National Quality Accreditation and plan of guaranteed wages for each member. As per the Act of Australia Workplace Relations, National system is created for enriching the standards of various sectors. It includes childcare that brings in development in employment situations and wages after the development of the Australian Commission. These are developed by earning a little amount of guaranteed wages in childcare industry with the employer is non-profit and commercial sector. According to Employment Standards, all these laws are applied primarily to the staffs of Australian childcare centers and wage subsidy funding.

It has been found that from the last decade onwards, the theoretical underpinnings have collected procedures from earlier periods of life. These years are important for gaining immense knowledge regarding kids. This helps to provide the base to the later researches. Thus, it assists to explore the involvement between audience and developmental results at childhood learning (early) and concerned programs.

Childcare setting has been created for the kids of the age group 0-3 years. On the other hand, attendance in childcare in initial three years of their life is very important, as, this helps to gain strong impacts on language and cognitive development particularly for children. However, these kids are those who get disadvantage in home and thus are admitted to childcare centers for getting high quality knowledge. Therefore, this is a vital factor to understand that Quality is an essential factor for getting success. This implies that poor quality of childcare produces deficits in cognitive and language function particularly for kids. The quality of a child of age range 0-3 years is impacted by inconclusive nature[7]. It indicates improved independence and better intellectual and thus it assists in developing concentration at school entry. It has been found that low-rate ability of learning and increased elevated risks after the development of anti-social behavior in future. However, the reported advantages regarding attendance must be more in quality than childcare service provided. Thus, the researchers stated that the kids from underprivileged backgrounds mainly imply greater gains and presence of high quality childcare services.

Research Questions

As per the earlier researches, the kids of age range 3-5 years generally are considered as preschool set. It implies that stand-alone schools and the day care mainly conduct the preschool programs that are reported in order to promote cognitive and social improvement advantages for improved performance particularly at dedicated tests in earlier years of primary school. Moreover, numbers of present days in preschool is considered as a better fact as this helps in making better intellectual improvement and independence concerning sociability characteristics[8]. According to the previous investigators, longitudinal research implies demonstration of affectivity of high superiority and payment of attention to preschool programs after the reduction of the impact of social disadvantages. It implies development of capability of kids communal and touching of physical situation during preparation of the kids for victorious evolution at school. Therefore, this can be said that the advantages were optimized with the passage of time, especially, when kids from different social backgrounds participate in certain preschool programs[9]. On the other hand, the kids those are staying in disadvantaged societies are mainly mot much proficient in language English. Moreover, Indigenous Children detection is susceptible and is benefited from programs of preschool. These programs help in increasing the attendance rate of the susceptible kids to preschool programs and this requires to be sensitive (culturally) in nature.   

As per most of the researchers, the first few years of a kid’s life are considered as the most important duration for gaining severe learning. Thus, the key significance lies in the experience of a kid in his early days and the main highlight is on the experience of his childhood days as well as his education in those days. Therefore, the childcare services of the childcare centers are considered as a region of investment and along with it, this service is also regarded as the outcome of policy initiatives at similar moment of time[10]. These are counted as policy initiatives as the government of the country wishes to reduce the rate of labor participation distinctly.                       

This research study will be performed through data and information collection from the secondary resources. However, the secondary resources involve the peer viewed journals, scientific articles, websites, related books and many more. Additionally, here the researcher will collect secondary data from fiscal declarations and census reports. Furthermore, the chief information about research topic will be collected from “Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)” and “Department of Family and Community Services”[11].  

Literature Review

All the collected data from secondary resources will be studied by correlating the information from earlier peer reviewed articles and journals with present circumstance of the study. Additionally, the researcher will aid to integrate methodologies of quantitative research and accurate sampling method as this will allow in enumeration procedure[12].

Figure 1: The Procedure of Research

(Source: Created by Author)

• This is an important factor to understand that the Research Procedure is a harmonized procedure through which data gathering can be done based on the research topic i.e. “An exploration into childcare sector in Australia”. Thus, it will pick up pertinent factors to research the topic in details.
• Firstly, definition of the research idea that line with the topic should be explained. In this step, researchers will transform the research questions to the future analysis.
• Secondly, research design will be analyzed and this second step helps in studying the research design that is in line with the research “An exploration into childcare sector in Australia”. Moreover, this step will also be comprised of Research Investigation, Research Philosophy and Research Methods[13].
• Research Philosophies will be illustrated in detail i.e. Realism, Interpretivism and Positivism. Here, Positivism Philosophy includes consideration of scientific collection method of information that line with the topic of research. On the other hand, Interpretivism considers the emotional side of human being. Lastly, Realism is defined as the philosophy that is comprised of combination of both Interpretivism and Positivism philosophies. Therefore, in this research study, the researchers will use Positivism Philosophy, as the attribute of data gathering will be taken into account here.
• Research methods are of two types – Deductive and Inductive Research methods[14]. However, in this research study, the researcher will use deductive approach as the other is concerned with testing theory. On the contrary, the inductive method of research is concerned with the development of newer concepts and theories that emerged from data.
• Thirdly, the researcher of the project will gather information based on the research topic “An exploration into childcare sector in Australia”.
• Fourthly, the researcher will analyze information in an accurate way and thus it will be gathered from various resources (secondary).
• Lastly, the researcher should be more concerned about the Publication Process. It implies, in this research, the researcher will use secondary resources for completing the study. It is also considered as one of the procedure that helps to understand the methods of data collection by using the analysis process of marginal probability.

Sample is described as the data set that is acquired as well as selected from a particular mathematical population in accurate course of action. There are different elements of samples that are considered as sample points for the method of observation. In this study, the researcher will use the “Probability Sampling Technique” as the data have been selected from the targeted population (sample)[15]. On the contrary, this sampling technique is a kind of sampling methods that is utilized for providing constituent individuals of targeted population. This needs utilized manners to use probability process, while, researchers will fund several individuals that place the group in a range opening from 0 to 5 years.

Moreover, the researcher will apply marginal probability of two criteria that have been placed in provided areas. It has highest scores in the selection of targeted sample of the provided study. As per the state of income of Childcare Centers, the researcher will choose the most efficient childcare centers that have sufficient areas and accessible vacancies at a similar point of time[16]. This implies non-accessibility of vacancy implies more demand and this will result into more income of the childcare centers in the entire country. Thus, all data will be gathered from different sources, corporations as information have been represented in the fiscal declaration and company websites.       

It can be said based on the conducted research that this particular research is about the approaches that should be implemented by the Australian Childcare Centers. Here, quantitative method of data collection has been mainly highlighted for understanding the research topic in detail[17]. Moreover, by the process of adoption of quantitative method of data collection, appropriate sampling technique should be implemented in order to bring clear understanding about the research topic. Additionally, this will also help in the remuneration process, as information has been gathered from the fiscal declarations of the sample that has been utilized in the research for lining it up with the particular research topic[18].

It has been found that in the particular research study, there is both dependent and independent variables. However, this study mainly considers more and is referred to such variable that can be altered through different experiment-performer and thus it gets effect. In contrast, dependent variables will mainly be itemized after the analysis of the entire influence of independent variables that are affected by the dependent one. According to the particular study, the researchers will select “location of centers of childcares” as “independent variable” and “success factors” as “dependent variables”[19]. Thus, the researchers will perform the study with the aim to present a measurable forecast in relative to result of the research. This forecast is comprised of independent variables that affect other dependent variable in a particular manner.     

This particular proposal has explained the theoretical underpinnings and has illustrated all the theories that are implemented by the childcare centers of Australia. This overall research work mainly puts highlight on the understanding of the importance of childcare centers and its spontaneous growth and expansion in the Australian market. This study has mainly focused on the children of the age range 0-5 years. It has been found that the kids of this particular group need an accurate direction or supervision for their study, such that they can lead a better living in future. This will also help the kids to become an efficient individual in future and can serve his society as well as his country well[20]. Thus, accurate care of parents is required for each child of the specified age group to become an efficient human being in future. In addition to this, proper guidance of the parents will also assist the children to have better living (standard of living) and will aid to fulfill the basic protocols of their life.           

Thus, it can be recommended that by the end of the detailed study, the particular research proposal should mainly deal with the research topic through in-depth analysis. The reason behind this is that it helps to gain accurate understanding regarding the research topic “An exploration into childcare sector in Australia”. It has been found that the overall research work is regarding the implication of growing childcare centers in Australia and its implication in the present days. Every kid should be provided with the fundamental education, such that child exploitation as well as the numbers of child labors or the rate of growth of child labor percentages can be reduced in Australia. Based on the detailed analysis, it can be said that the researcher should be capable enough to manage the availability of time. In addition to this, the researcher should come under the gathering of genuine or authenticated data and information from the websites of Australia in to collection information about the Australian Government.     

References

McGunnigle, C., Treasure, T. and Davie, S., 2014. We Are All Educators… Or Are We? Changes In Perceptions Of The Childcare Sector By Australian Pre-Service Teachers Following Professional Exposure To Educational Practice Within Childcare Settings. In Edulearn14 Proceedings (Pp. 1555-1561). Iated.

O'Connor, D., McGunnigle, C., Treasure, T. and Davie, S., 2014. We are all educators... or are we? Changes in perceptions of the childcare sector by Australian pre-Service teachers following professional exposure to educational practice within childcare settings.

O'Connor, D., McGunnigle, C., Treasure, T. and Davie, S., 2014. Shall we play us and them or all together now? Leadership opportunities for cohesiveness and unity within a fractured Western Australian Early Childhood Education Sector.

Gribble, C., Blackmore, J., Morrissey, A.M. and Capic, T., 2016. Investigating the use of IELTS in determining employment, migration and professional registration outcomes in healthcare and early childcare education in Australia. IELTS Research Reports Online Series, p.58.

Gambaro, L., Stewart, K. and Waldfogel, J., 2015. An equal start?: Providing quality early education and care for disadvantaged children. Policy Press.

O'Connor, D., McGunnigle, C., Treasure, T. and Davie, S., 2015. Educator identities. Emerging issues within personal and professional identities: changes experienced by Australian pre-service teachers following professional exposure to educational practice within childcare settings. Early Child Development and Care, 185(8), pp.1331-1342.

Cook, K., Corr, L. and Breitkreuz, R., 2017. The framing of Australian childcare policy problems and their solutions. Critical Social Policy, 37(1), pp.42-63.

Logan, H., Press, F. and Sumsion, J., 2016. The shaping of Australian early childhood education and care: What can we learn from a critical juncture?. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 41(1), p.64.

McMahon, S., 2015. Literature Review: What can we learn from the Childcare and Early Education Literature?. Children Australia, 40(01), pp.87-90.

O'Connor, D., McGunnigle, C., Treasure, T. and Davie, S., 2014. Teachers who care and carers who educate. Professional status issues and differences in pay and conditions are resulting in a tale of division within our Early Childhood Community.

Grieshaber, S. and Graham, L.J., 2015. Equity and educators enacting the Australian early years learning framework. Critical Studies in Education, pp.1-15.

Logan, H., Sumsion, J. and Press, F., 2014. Uncovering hidden dimensions of Australian early childhood policy history: Insights from interviews with policy ‘elites’. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22(5), pp.711-722.

Charlesworth, S. and Macdonald, F., 2014. Women, work and industrial relations in Australia in 2013. Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(3), pp.381-396.

Adamson, E. and Brennan, D., 2016. Return of the Nanny: Public Policy towards In?home Childcare in the UK, Canada and Australia. Social Policy & Administration.

McShane, I., 2016. ‘Educare’in Australia: analysing policy mobility and transformation. Educational Research, 58(2), pp.179-194.

Cartmel, J. and Hayes, A., 2016. Before and After School: Literature Review about Australian School Age Child Care. Children Australia, 41(03), pp.201-207.

Gibbs, L. and Bryant, L., 2013. Children's rights undermined. Rattler (Sydney), (105), p.12.

Brennan, D., 2014. The business of care: Australia’s experiment with the marketisation of childcare. Australian Public Policy: Progressive Ideas in the Neoliberal Ascendency, pp.151-167.

Brebner, C., Hammond, L., Schaumloffel, N. and Lind, C., 2015. Using relationships as a tool: early childhood educators’ perspectives of the child–caregiver relationship in a childcare setting. Early Child Development and Care, 185(5), pp.709-726.

Gerritsen, S., Morton, S. and Wall, C.R., 2016. Physical activity and screen use policy and practices in childcare: results from a survey of early childhood education services in New Zealand. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 40(4), pp.319-325.