Documents expose disturbing details about next generation of childcare students

Thousands of students are getting fast-tracked qualifications to work in childcare centres and it’s compromising safety standards, experts warn.

Some of these courses are being used as visa pathways, some stripped of substance, others entirely fake. Education providers are cashing in, pumping out tens of thousands of students — some with no prior childcare experience — and pushing them into centres with minimal oversight.

A cache of regulatory documents has also revealed widespread gaps in basic care: educators not understanding child protection policies, mandatory reporting duties, or even safe sleep and hygiene practices.

Some childcare centre staff were failing to report serious incidents due to a lack of understanding of the rules and obligations.

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Last week, the arrest of Melbourne childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown, charged with more than 70 child abuse offences involving children as young as five months, triggered emergency crisis talks and promises of urgent reform from state and federal governments.

But behind these announcements lies a structural problem. The training system producing the next generation of early childhood educators is failing.

With more than 21,000 educators needed and one in four current workers planning to leave the sector, some universities and colleges have seized on the labour shortage and recent changes to Australia’s migration rules — which now include childcare as a pathway for permanent residency.

In the rush, quality has been sacrificed.

Millions of dollars in fees, minimum interest in childcare

To become an early childhood teacher in Australia, a four-year degree is typical. But some providers are offering graduate diplomas that take as little as 10 months to complete, with no prior teaching or childcare experience required.

One institution pushing it hard is Southern Cross University (SCU), a 31-year-old institution based in regional NSW, with campuses in Lismore, Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast. It also has a presence in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.

2023 marked a turning point when it bought out a private education partner and ramped up its international student intake. Fast-track courses like childcare were aggressively marketed through education and immigration agents.

In just two years, 7.30 understands an estimated 6,000 students have enrolled in its 10-month graduate diploma in early education — a course marketed by third parties to both local and international students as a shortcut to becoming a qualified teacher. At $25,000 per student, that’s around $150 million in fees.

The majority are international students, some are men in their 40s and 50s, with backgrounds in fields like IT, engineering and finance — not early childhood education or teaching.

“Childcare services are recognising that students are quite openly telling them that they are only there to get their permanent residency and that’s why they are undertaking the course,” one Southern Cross University insider said.

Immigration expert Mark Glazbrook said the surge in fast-track courses to attract overseas students looking for permanent residency was deeply concerning.

“A large number of these students are not genuine in their desire to work in the childcare sector,” Mr Glazbrook told 7.30.

“They’re looking after our children and in some cases they’re not attending their classes.”

He said some applicants openly admit they have no interest in early childhood education and simply want to know which course is most likely to get them permanent residency.

It has led to a boom in low-quality and sometimes fake qualifications.

Last year, the national vocational regulator ASQA revoked more than 21,000 certificates, including nearly 2,000 in childcare, after finding four private colleges had issued fraudulent paperwork.

It is part of a broader probe into 138 providers, 29 of which are registered to offer childcare courses.

“There are a lot of education providers that are set up to deliver courses that are worthless,” Mr Glazbrook said.

‘Quantity over quality’

Educators, experts and parents say the consequences of substandard training are playing out in childcare centres across the country, from poor supervision to unsafe practices and serious breaches in care.

Some of SCU’s students have been terminated or asked to leave by various centres, or have been put on an action plan and possible deferment of a placement during their 30-day placements after the centre reported incidents, including falling asleep during shifts, ignoring distressed children, and engaging in inappropriate physical contact.

Documents seen by 7.30 refer to one student caught trying to take children into private spaces unsupervised.

“Even has been asked in home language with no change. No observations or documentation has been completed at all despite support. Has said they do not need to engage in any learning and they are only here to get their visa.”

Another student was noted as being terminated for inappropriate and unwanted physical conduct with children including cuddling children who didn’t want it, rubbing a child’s chest and lifting a child’s dress.

An educator at a NSW childcare centre didn’t complete their placement after being caught playing computer games on the job.

One was asked to leave after shaking a toddler.

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Multiple current and former staff, assessors and contractors — some bound by confidentiality agreements — say many students doing the graduate diploma struggle with the basics, and some are passing assessments despite serious integrity breaches.

“We’ve had a lot of AI issues for this particular course. We have had lots of plagiarism. We’ve had collusion between students,” one former academic said.

They said the course was referred to as “the golden goose” and a “cash cow” inside the faculty.

The pressure to push students through is compounded by the university’s rapid growth.

“We’ve gone from 200 students studying a unit to more than 2,000,” another former academic said.

Cold calls over teaching?

The concerns go far beyond the classroom.

Leaked emails and whistleblower testimony reveal how SCU enrolled so many students in the past two years that it struggled to find enough childcare placements for students, which is a compulsory component of the course.

In May, staff were told the situation had become a “significant crisis” threatening the viability of the university’s education faculty. At the time, the university needed to place 400 students for May and another 2,381 by July.

Centres were offered incentives to take more students and the staff who made the most calls won a gift card.

Meanwhile, students were being assigned to centres hours from home, with little notice.

“The situation is getting desperate,” a contractor with the university said.

“Staff are getting abused, some students are in tears on the phone saying they have taken annual leave from their paid job expecting to start their placement and don’t have one … it’s an absolute crisis.”

SCU placed – or tried to place – some students in centres that are failing to meet minimum national quality standards.

One example is students being placed at a childcare centre in NSW which is rated “significant improvement required”, the lowest of all quality ratings and one that carries a red flag risk for child safety.

Marianne Fenech, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Sydney, said placing students in centres with a low quality rating was unacceptable.

Greens MP Abigail Boyd, who helped obtain internal documents from the NSW regulator, and is chairing a parliamentary enquiry, said that particular centre had a long record of serious breaches.

“Not understanding safe sleep policies, not inducting staff properly, not checking working with children checks,” she said.

“The idea that a centre that is incapable of understanding and complying with regulation is then taking on these trainee students, how on earth is it giving them a good education?”

‘A cash cow for universities’

Whistleblowers say fast-track courses are a symptom of a broken system.

“It’s not about whether it’s a good learning environment, it’s about getting them through,” one said.

“And the question nobody is asking is: what’s this doing to the kids?”

Professor Fenech says she is concerned about the decline in education quality.

She said analysis of the Teachers in Early Education national study revealed nine new graduate diploma courses have been approved this year, with two-thirds of them run by private colleges.

She noted that fees for international students range between $23,292-$36,400 a year for a full fee-paying place and between $17,500-$40,500 at private institutions.

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“This is new in the teacher education space because we have a significant shortage of early childhood teachers.”

Professor Fenech said employers of high quality childcare services were telling her that the quality of graduates coming out was not what it used to be.

She said Sydney University won’t offer fast track courses.

“I wouldn’t propose it, I don’t have confidence they prepare graduates well enough for what they are required to do educating children,” she said.

Former educator Lynette Rieck, now a trainer and assessor, agrees. She has worked in childcare for 35 years and says the quality of graduates and educators has never been lower.

“The only way we’re going to get enough educators through is by dropping the standards,” Ms Rieck said. “But the people who pay the price are the children.”

She says for-profit centres are the key problem, offering low pay, poor training, and little oversight.

“If you don’t invest in your educators, you can’t expect quality care. It’s not complicated,” she said.

‘Our life was shattered’

The consequences of poor quality education can be devastating.

In July 2018, Jozef Maragol’s 16-month-old daughter, Arianna, was found unresponsive at a Sydney childcare centre.

“The call came and I was told that we have found Arianna unresponsive and we are currently performing CPR and that the ambulance is taking her to Westmead Children’s Hospital,” Mr Maragol said.

Arianna later died in hospital. Since then Jozef has been trying to get answers.

“We had to get a legal team to work with us to start finding out what happened to her,” he said.

The centre’s sleep policy, on paper, exceeded national benchmarks that require staff to check on children every 10 to 15 minutes. He said CCTV footage revealed Arianna had been left alone for a long period of time and was done via a screen rather than physical checks, which makes it harder to see the colour of the skin or a child breathing.

He later learned that the centre’s sleep practices had been flagged years earlier by an inspector visiting the centre, who noted an educator was doing sleep checks via a screen.

He believes poorly trained staff contributed to the tragedy.

“Some of these trainers, they’re very young. How do they know what is the correct policy or procedures to revive a child that is not responding?” he said.

“How do they make the decision of walking into the room to check physically on the breathing pattern of the kids? These are very crucial points that any educator needs to be aware of.

“The system, the industry needs an overhaul entirely so we can show that our kids going to these centres are safe.”

At a tipping point

SCU declined 7.30’s interview request and did not respond to detailed questions about enrolment numbers, staff turnover, student distress, or course quality and placement issues.

In a statement it said the graduate diploma is a “rigorous, high-quality program” attracting strong interest, and that it is fully accredited by the national higher education regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA).

In the past year the TEQSA has received a series of complaints from staff and students about SCU’s early education courses.

TEQSA has launched a probe into Southern Cross University. In a statement it confirmed it has launched “live compliance” processes into SCU earlier this year. It said these findings would inform a separate review of the university’s re-registration, which was currently underway.

As the sector struggles to fill tens of thousands of vacancies, experts say Australia is at a tipping point.

“We don’t want a system where we just hot house children in services so their parents can go to work,” Professor Fenech said.

“We need early learning environments that are going to give children the foundation for success in life that they need.”

While there are good educators, good students and good childcare centres, experts say they are being let down by a broken system.

“I believe in children’s rights to a quality early childhood education. I’ve read the evidence about how critical those early years are,” Professor Fenech said.

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