• Summary
• Downloads
• Explanatory Notes
• Related Information
• Past Releases

APPENDIX DATA COMPARISON


COMPARISON OF DATA FROM CEACS AND THE NATIONAL EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE COLLECTION



Tables 1 and 2 below show data on use of preschool for 4 and 5 year olds, from CEaCS and the National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection (ECEC). Data from the ECEC is drawn from Experimental Estimates of Preschool Education, Australia, 2011. This information is only available in ECEC for five of the states and territories, so the CEaCS table shows data for the corresponding states and territories. Methodological and conceptual differences between the two collections contribute to discrepancies between these two sets of estimates.

The ECEC is an administrative data collection, in which data is collected directly from state and territory administrative records, based on information supplied by service providers. The data are subject to definitional constraints to ensure that information is only collected for services considered in-scope as a preschool program. For ECEC, a service provider is considered to be in-scope if it is providing a structured, play-based learning program, delivered by a degree-qualified teacher, aimed at children in the year or two before they commence full-time schooling.

In contrast, the CEaCS was collected by interview with parents, who were asked about their child's attendance at preschool. To ensure that parents were referring to a preschool program, state-specific wording was used in the questionnaire to reflect the common terminology for preschool, the questions were restricted to children aged 3 to 6 years, and parents were asked to state the name of the preschool their child attended. However, it was not possible to verify whether the parent was reporting on a preschool as defined in ECEC. This may have resulted in the CEaCS estimating a greater number of children attending preschool than the ECEC estimate.

There are other conceptual and definitional differences between the two tables. The ECEC table shows counts of children enrolled in a preschool program at a point in time, while the CEaCS table shows estimates of the number of children who usually attended a preschool program. The ECEC data was collected on 1-5 August 2011, while the CEaCS data was collected on 5-18 June 2011; these two periods would have been in different school terms in most jurisdictions. For more information on the ECEC, refer to National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2011.

A1 Children aged 4-5 years who usually attended a preschool program in 2011
		State and Territory
Childhood Education and Care Survey		NSW	Vic.	Tas.	NT	ACT
Type of program
	Preschool only	47 100	64 800	7 500	2 300	2 800
	Long day care with a preschool program only	35 600	12 600	(a)800	-	np
	Long day care with a preschool program and preschool	(a)2 700	(b)6 700	(a)400	(a)300	np
	Total children usually attended a preschool program	85 300	84 100	8 700	2 600	4 800
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) estimate has a relative standard error greater than 50% and is considered too unreliable for general use
(b) estimate has a relative standard error of 25% to 50% and should be used with caution

A2 Children aged 4-5 years enrolled in a preschool program in 2011
		State and Territory
Experimental Estimates of Preschool Education		NSW	Vic.	Tas.	NT	ACT
Type of program
	Preschool only	35 200	55 100	6 300	3 000	(a)3 600
	Long day care with a preschool program only	27 100	11 800	100	100	600
	Long day care with a preschool program and preschool	2 100	600	200	100	500
	Total children usually attended a preschool program	64 400	67 500	6 600	3 200	4 700
(a) Australian Capital Territory only includes government preschools and is not a complete representation of the preschool sector.