WESTERN AUSTRALIA
OVERVIEW
In Western Australia (WA), ‘kindergarten’ is the term used for a child’s year before full-time schooling (referred to within this manual as 'preschool') and ‘pre-primary’ is the term used for the first year of full-time schooling. Children in WA are eligible to enrol in a preschool program at the beginning of the year if they are 4 years old on or prior to 30 June of the same year. The provision of preschool education is integrated with school education in WA.
Preschool is provided in nearly all schools which cater for WA primary school aged children. Preschool is provided in both the government and non-government sectors, and in a small number of community and independent preschools.
LEGISLATION AND LICENSING
Under WA legislation, the School Education Act 1999 (WA), a program is only recognised as a preschool program if it is provided within a school setting. Therefore preschool programs provided in Long Day Care (LDC) settings or those not being provided within a school setting are not officially recognised as preschool in WA.
MANAGEMENT TYPES
In WA, there are both government and non-government managed services providing preschool programs.
Preschool
Preschool in WA consists of the following management types:
Government managed
Government managed preschool programs are provided in all schools which cater for primary school aged children. Government preschools in WA are delivered and funded by the WA Department of Education (DoE) and are operated as part of public schools. Government provided preschool programs are provided free of charge in WA, although parents may be asked to pay a voluntary contribution per child, per annum. Government managed preschools which have been registered under the School Education Act 1999 are bound by this Act, as well as the School Education Regulations 2000.
WA also considers community-based preschools to be government preschools. Community-based preschools are registered by the Minister of Education and are staffed, funded and quality assured by the public education system. Parent management committees are responsible for financial management and daily operations in these preschools. Community-based preschools are provided free of charge in WA, although parents may be asked to pay a voluntary contribution per child, per annum. Community-based preschools which have been registered under the School Education Act 1999 are bound by the conditions of this Act, as well as the School Education Regulations 2000.
Non-government managed
Independent schools: Catholic and independent schools are registered by the Minister and their programs are quality assured either by the Catholic Education Office of WA or the WA Department of Education Services (DES). All non-government schools with preschool programs receive a per capita grant for age-eligible children enrolled at the school. The balance of funding is sourced from compulsory tuition fees and/or other sources. Non-government schools and independent preschools which have been registered under the School Education Act 1999 are bound by the conditions of this Act, as well as the School Education Regulations 2000.
Long day care
LDCs in WA consist of the following management types:
Private for-profit: Preschool programs provided in LDC settings are not officially recognised in WA as preschool, unless the LDC is also registered as a school. In this situation, the LDC would be included in the non-government school category. Other preschool programs in LDCs do not therefore receive funding from the WA DoE for their preschool programs. Education regulations and quality assurance mechanisms that apply to schools do not apply to preschool programs in LDCs. In particular, LDCs are not required to implement the WA curriculum framework and are not required to employ teachers who are members of the Western Australia College of Teachers. LDCs are bound by the Childcare Service Act 2007 (WA), the Children's Services (Childcare) Regulations 2006 and the Childcare Services Regulations 2007.
QUALITY OF DATA SOURCE
WA School Census
In 2010 WA had one main source for collection of data in relation to preschool programs, the WA School Census.
Institutional environment
The organisation responsible for the School Census is the WA Department of Education (DoE).
Relevance
The data collected through the School Census by the DoE was used to meet national reporting requirements, including the National Schools Statistics Collection and the National ECEC Collection. The data were also used to determine school operating grant allocations and planning for both sectors.
The scope for the early childhood component of the School Census consisted of all children aged 3 to 6 years old who were attending a preschool program within a school, including government and non-government schools, and community-based preschools and independent preschools. Data was not collected from LDCs. Full coverage was achieved for all registered schools and community-based preschools.
In 2010 data from WA registered and funded preschool programs were collected at the aggregate level as follows:
- Registered, DoE funded preschool programs: information on service operations and characteristics.
- Children enrolled at a registered or DoE funded preschool program: information on child characteristics, including enrolment.
- Staff: information on employment arrangements and qualifications.
Preschool programs in an LDC were not officially recognised as preschool (unless recognised as a school) by WA DoE, and therefore were not included in the 2010 School Census. The Early Childhood Education and Care National Minimum Data Set (ECEC NMDS) defines that a preschool program can operate in an LDC if the program comprises a structured education program usually provided by a qualified teacher. Jurisdictional collections currently do not have full coverage of preschool programs being delivered in LDC as defined by the ECEC NMDS for the National ECEC Collection. Data sourced from the Child Care Management System (CCMS) is required to achieve full coverage of preschool activity in LDC nationally. CCMS preschool data was not included in the 2010 collection due to the required information not being collected. In the future, the National ECEC Collection aims to include information on preschool programs provided within LDC through the CCMS.
Timeliness
The collection was undertaken on the DoE census date at 6 August 2010 for a reference week of 2 August to 6 August 2010. Completion of the data processing and validation stage took approximately 2 to 3 months after the collection date, at which time the data were delivered to the ABS.
Accuracy
Government preschool data was obtained from government primary schools through an administrative system, the INTEGRIS Student Information System (SIS). The Census Module was run within SIS and fed data from the INTEGRIS SIS, into the Schools Census. All government schools were required to participate in the collection. They were also required to complete an aggregate level paper based collection form to meet additional collection requirements for the National ECEC Collection.
Non-government schools provided ECEC data on a WA Schools Census spreadsheet which was returned to the Schools Census team.
Government and non-government data collected through the Schools Census was then stored in the WA data repository, and extracted for the purposes of the National ECEC Collection.
Internal validation processes for the School Census occurred at three different points of the process. The Census module within SIS had a series of in-built validation rules, some of which required the school to edit data before continuing, while other rules generated warnings alerting the user to anomalies. These warnings allowed the user to decide whether data needed amending before the census return was submitted. WA schools commonly rang the Census team for advice at this stage. For government schools, a validation tool allowed administrators to check the integrity of bulk child date of birth data. This first level of validation only applied to WA government schools/preschools.
WA non-government schools used an Excel spreadsheet, which incorporated only internal consistency checks. For non-government schools, there was a checklist provided which listed suggestions for validations such as:
- Checking totals were correct
- Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal columns were equal to the total column
- Preschool children were counted by year of birth
WA non-government school data was also subjected to general validation processes by the Schools Census team.
The second set of validation processes were run by the census team, using both routine and ad-hoc validation methods to examine data as it was assembled in working files. These processes were designed to be able to effectively investigate new issues.
The third set of validation rules were built into the custom software which loaded school census data into the data warehouse, or into the staging phase.
Coherence
In 2010 DoE supplied only aggregate level data for the National ECEC Collection. Aggregate data collection methodologies using the 2010 ECEC Aggregate National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) did not allow for the identification of multiple enrolments for a single child. Unit record level data was collected from government schools which enabled a degree of checking for duplicates within the government sector. In the collection reference period, a child may be enrolled and attend two or more different preschool programs. Aggregate data from the 2010 WA School Census did not allow identification of unique record. This methodology could only produce episodes of enrolment, and not the enrolment/ attendance of children. 2010 ECEC statistics from WA should be interpreted with care as it is not directly comparable with other jurisdictional data included in the 2010 National ECEC Collection.
Due to expected developments to the 2011 School Census, a time series will not be achievable with 2010 data. It is anticipated that time series will be achievable in the future as the WA DoE collection develops in its capacity to capture unit record level child and staff data.
Further information on data elements:
- For the 2010 National ECEC Collection, data from WA could only be presented in terms of enrolment.
- Children in non-government preschools were classified by age. If the child was 4 years old or younger at 1 July then they were classified as attending preschool, while those 5 years and older were classified as pre-primary (i.e., year 1 minus 1). This means that there were no 5 or 6 year olds in the non-government preschool data, and any 4 year olds who were actually in pre-primary were classified as being in preschool.
- Indigenous status was collected at the required categories, however only 'Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander' and 'non-Indigenous' categories were reported to the ABS due to WA's concerns about data quality between management types.
Interpretability
For government schools, a manual was provided to assist the user with the Census Module, including instructions and validation techniques. For non-government schools, a checklist was provided which included instructions and suggestions for validations.
Accessibility
National and jurisdictional level information is published in
Experimental Estimates of Preschool Education, Australia, 2010 (cat. no. 4240.0) and is available on the ABS website.
The information contained within this report has been sourced from the WA DoE website, and consultations held between DoE and the ABS. Further information is available on the WA DoE website
<http://www.det.wa.edu.au/>.
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