Childhood development

Access to education, skills development and learning throughout life

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Metric

Proportion of children developmentally on track in all five domains of the Australian Early Development Census

Why this matters

Early childhood development sets the stage for future health, wellbeing and prosperity.

This measure describes whether children are developmentally on track in their physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge.

Progress

In 2021, the proportion of children developmentally on track in all five domains decreased to 54.8%, from 55.4% in 2018. 

This decrease may have been influenced by COVID-related disruptions.

Preschool programs for children aged 3 to 5 years have cognitive and social development benefits. In 2023, the number of children aged 4 or 5 years old enrolled in a preschool program was 337,305, a 0.9% increase on the number of children enrolled in 2022 (334,440).

Data Source
2021 AEDC National Report - Appendix 6 (pg 94)

Differences across groups

In 2021:

  • 50.3% of children with a language background other than English were developmentally on track in all five domains
  • 63.4% of children living in the least disadvantaged areas (quintile 5 of the SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage) were on track in all five domains, compared with 42.7% of children living in the most disadvantaged areas (quintile 1 of the SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage)
  • 56.0% of children in major cities were developmentally on track in all five domains, compared with 52.2% in regional areas and 44.1% in remote and very remote areas.

Australian Early Development Census data reported in Closing the Gap shows that from 2009 to 2018, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children on track in all five domains increased from 25.5% to 35.2%. Similar to trends at the national level, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children on track in all five domains decreased in 2021 (to 34.3%).

Disaggregation

Further information about how different groups performed in the Australian Early Development Census is available in the 2021 AEDC National Report.

Disaggregation available includes:

  • Gender
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status
  • Cultural and language diversity: language background
  • Remoteness
  • SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage.