Access to high-quality early childhood education and care is a critical issue for NSW families. It is closely linked to better long-term educational outcomes for children and increased workforce participation for parents, especially women.
IPART was asked to review NSW early childhood education and care affordability, accessibility and consumer choice, including for community and mobile preschool, family day care, long day care, NSW Department of Education preschool, occasional care, and outside school hours care.
We completed our review and submitted our Final Report to the Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning on 19 December 2023.
Our Final Report builds on our Interim Report which was published in October 2023. It incorporates stakeholder feedback on our draft recommendations and sets out our analysis, findings and recommendations to the NSW Government for each of the tasks set out in our Terms of Reference including to:
- review the market and report on factors driving accessibility, consumer choice, affordability and supply of services
- collect cost and revenue data on current fees, household out-of-pocket costs, and provider revenue and costs
- estimate benchmark prices that reflect the costs of providing quality services and to compare service fees
- recommend ways to improve affordability, accessibility and consumer choice.
The Premier tabled the Final Report in Parliament on 4 March 2024 and we have now published the report on our website.