With the Victorian Government progressing much-needed reforms across the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector, in late 2025, Uniting made a submission to the Inquiry into the ECEC sector in Victoria to meaningfully improve Victorians’ access to safe, high-quality early learning.
In Victoria, Uniting delivers kindergarten, long day care, family day care, outside school hours care, and educator outreach programs across metropolitan, regional and rural areas – 45 of our 73 centres are in regional or rural locations. We are also the lead agency for the Kindergarten Inclusion Support and Pre-School Field Officer programs.
Our submission is grounded in our day-to-day work and reflects what we are seeing as reforms are rolled out across the system. Workforce shortages remain the single biggest barrier to accessible, high-quality early childhood education and care. These shortages are compounded by inconsistent training quality, ambiguity in regulatory standards that can enable unsafe practices, and the rapid growth of for-profit models, which risks deepening inequities in access and quality. While the impacts are most acute in regional and disadvantaged communities, they are being felt across the state.
We have highlighted several priority areas for government consideration, including:
- Strengthening workforce capability and retention through rigorous training oversight, fair pay, and accessible professional development.
- Adequately resourcing the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (VECRA) to enforce standards consistently and adopt a more collaborative compliance model.
- Providing clearer guidance and stronger supports for educator-to-child ratios, maintaining necessary flexibility for regional services while preventing unsafe practices.
- Ensuring public investment is accompanied by equitable funding settings and safeguards so it drives quality, access and safety, not profit margins
- Designing reforms in genuine partnership with the sector, so that changes are practical, sustainable, and minimise administrative burden.
Uniting believes these reforms are essential to building a sustainable ECEC system that supports Victorian children to thrive and enables families to participate fully in work and community life.
