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Early Childhood Education and Care: Unit Record Level NMDS 2010

This item has been superseded by a newer version by one or more Registration Authorities.

Definition

This data set has been developed to support the collection of data under the National Information Agreement for Early Childhood Education and Care. Responsibility for early childhood learning and care is shared between the Australian Government and the state and territory government, and involves a wide range of service providers including government, local government, community, schools and the private sector.

The Agreement provides a framework for cooperation between the Commonwealth, state and territory jurisdictions and information agencies to develop the early childhood education and care (ECEC) information base required for the Council of Australian Government (COAG) early childhood reform agenda.


Data and information in scope of the Agreement include:

• Activity under the National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education (NP ECE)
• ECEC information required to support the information needs of other National Agreements and National Partnerships, including the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood Development and the National Indigenous Reform Agreement
• Outcomes in relation to the COAG Participation and Productivity Agenda
• Other national reporting purposes, including but not limited to the Report on Government Services, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, Report to COAG Reform Council, and National Headline Indicators on Children’s Health, Development and Wellbeing
• Monitoring, research and evaluation related to children, families and early childhood development services under the Early Childhood Development Strategy (ECDS).


Service provider organisations for the purposes of this collection are agencies directly providing services to children at a specific location. This includes organisations providing preschool, and other early childhood education and direct care services.

A preschool program is a structured, play based learning program, usually provided by a qualified teacher on a sessional basis, primarily aimed at children in the year or two before they commence formal schooling, irrespective of the type of institution that provides it or whether it is government funded or privately provided. Programs may be delivered in a variety of service settings including separate preschools or kindergartens, long day care centres, in association with a primary school etc.

The terms most commonly used to describe preschool services in various states and territories are:

  • Kindergarten – Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania.
  • Kindergarten or Preschool – Victoria, South Australia.
  • Preschool – New South Wales, Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory.


A preschool program may or may not be delivered in such a way that meets the Universal Access goal. The requirements for Universal Access are listed below.

The National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education is a commitment to joint Commonwealth, State and Territory action to deliver universal access to quality early childhood education in the year before formal schooling.

Universal access means that every child, in the 12 months prior to formal schooling, has access to a preschool program that is

• delivered by a four year university qualified early childhood teacher in accordance with the National Early Years Learning Framework
• available for at least 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year
• delivered across a diversity of settings that meets the needs of parents and at a cost that does not present a barrier to participation.

The unit record level collection ECEC URL NMDS supports information to be collected at the child, teacher and service provider organisation level.

The information is to be collected within the census week in August 2010 to enable comparison with schools data collected in August each year.

ACT, NT and TAS will be completing the ECEC URL NMDS pilot in March 2010.

ACT, NT, TAS and NSW will be completing the ECEC URL NMDS collection in August 2010.

SA will collect the ECEC Aggregate NMDS collection in August 2010 and the ECEC URL NMDS in 2011.

Note: QLD, WA and VIC will be collecting the ECEC Aggregate NMDS for 2010.

There are a number of children's services data collections already in place, these data collections are undertaken at different times, collect different information and use different data definitions.

Metadata items in this Data Set Specification

Below is a list of all the components within this Dataset Specification.
Each entry includes the item name, whether the item is optional, mandatory or conditional and the maximum times the item can occur in a dataset.
If the items must occur in a particular order in the dataset, the sequence number is included before the item name.

Data Elements
Reference Data Element Data Type Length Inclusion #
Child—maximum preschool program hours available per week, total hours N[N] - - mandatory 1
Child—preschool service enrolment indicator, code N Boolean 1 mandatory 1
Child—preschool service received indicator, code N
Specific Information:

The child is defined as having attended preschool if they attended at least once within the census week.

Children who were absent during the census week due to illness or extended holiday leave should not be included.

 Boolean 1 mandatory 1
Person (address)—Australian postcode, code (Postcode datafile) {NNNN} - - mandatory 1
Person (address)—suburb/town/locality name, text A[A(49)] - - mandatory 1
Person (employed)—education field of highest relevant qualification, early childhood education and care field of qualification code N[N] Number 2 mandatory 1
Person (employed)—level of highest qualification in employment field, early childhood education and care, code N[N] Number 2 mandatory 1
Person (employed)—type of work activity, early childhood education and care code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—area of usual residence, geographical location CD code, (ASGC 2009) NNNNNNN - - mandatory 1
Person—Australian state/territory identifier, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person: Date of Birth, DDMMYYYY Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Person—Indigenous status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—role of early childhood education and care worker, code N - - mandatory 1
Service provider organisation (address)—Australian postcode, code (Postcode datafile) {NNNN} Number 4 mandatory 1
Service provider organisation (address)—suburb/town/locality name, text A[A(49)]
Specific Information:
In the Early Childhood Education and Care collection, this item refers to the location at which the preschool program is provided.
 String 50 mandatory 1
Service provider organisation—number of service operation weeks (calendar year), total NN
Specific Information:

In the Early Childhood Education NMDS, a Service Provider Organisation is defined as the organisational unit which delivers an early childhood education service at a particular location.

 Number 2 mandatory 1
Service provider organisation—service activity type, children's service code N Number 1 mandatory 1

Comments

Origin:
National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education

Comments:
There are a number of children's services data collections already in place, these data collections are undertaken at different times, collect different information and use different data definitions.

References

National Information Agreement for Early Childhood Education and Care 2009-2013.
This content Based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare material. Attribution provided as required under the AIHW CC-BY licence.

Related content

Relation Count
As a numerator in an Indicator 0
As a denominator in an Indicator 0
As a disaggregation in an Indicator 0