Increasing childcare rebates will ultimately push up the cost of such expense for parents, a new Sydney University study has found.
The Kids Count: Better early childhood education and care in Australia study found the nation's early childhood education and care was falling way behind the world's best practice.
But while such subsidies would improve affordability in the short-term, they would push up the cost of child care in the medium to long term, co-editor Dr Elizabeth Hill said.
"Subsidies simply add to demand when the supply of childcare places remains stable," Dr Hill said in a statement.
"Instead, we should be putting substantial resources into building a high quality national system of early childhood education and care for all Australian children and their families.
"The policy focus needs to be on improving quality as well as affordability."
Fellow co-author, Professor Barbara Pocock, said that at a time of record public surpluses, it was regrettable a larger investment was not being made.
More money would mean Australia could move from the bottom of the developed world's table measuring the investment countries make in children's earliest years.
"It is now well-established that devoting resources to children's first years is repaid many times over in individual education and employment prospects, as well as broader social and economic wellbeing," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment