Improving early childhood education and care in NSW
The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) is reviewing the NSW early childhood education
and care sector to look at improvements that could be made through NSW state government initiatives
and investment.
“We want to help ensure improved affordability, accessibility and consumer choice as a result of NSW
state government investment.”
“Access to early childhood education and care is currently unaffordable for a large number of NSW
families, and we’ll be looking at ways to turn this around,” said IPART Chair Carmel Donnelly.
“We’ll be estimating ‘benchmark’ prices that can be used to measure and compare fees in NSW.”
High quality early childhood education and care is a critical issue for NSW families closely linked to better
long-term educational outcomes for children and increased workforce participation for women.
We have today released an Issues paper seeking feedback on families’ experiences of access and
affordability in the sector currently used by more than 300,000 families in NSW.
“IPART would like to hear from the community, including families, as well as providers and workers in the
early childhood education and care sector, about their experience and concerns.”
“This input will help us formulate a broad set of recommendations to the NSW Government to ensure
better outcomes for families and children,” said Ms Donnelly.
There will be further opportunities to provide feedback throughout the review. We will hold online public
hearings on 15 and 16 May 2023 and publish an Interim Report in August 2023.
IPART’s review is focused on the NSW experience - there are also 2 national inquiries under way into
early childhood education and care by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the
Productivity Commission.
We will make final recommendations in December this year. For more information, to take our survey,
make a submission or register for the public hearings, visit our website at www.ipart.nsw.gov.au.
You can respond to the Issues Paper until 22 May 2023.