Abstract
A well-qualified, well-paid, stable workforce with high psychological and emotional wellbeing is critical to the provision of quality early childhood education and care, yet workforce shortages and high turnover persist in Australia and internationally. This paper uses ecological theory to conceptualise and make sense of findings from research that has investigated the recruitment, retention and wellbeing of early childhood teachers in Australia. The theoretical framing of early childhood teacher workforce issues proffered in the paper highlights the utility of considering these issues from a holistic ecological perspective. Analysis of Australian early childhood workforce studies draws attention to the need for large-scale, longitudinal research that holistically investigates influences on the attracting, retaining and sustaining of early childhood teachers, and the impact of these influences on teacher quality.
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12 March 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-021-00441-z
Notes
While ECEC is internationally recognised as birth-eight years of age, in this paper our focus is on the early years, that is, birth-five years.
ECTs in this paper refer to graduate teachers with undergraduate or postgraduate degrees that qualify them to work with children in the birth-five years age group. As will be explained later in the paper, early childhood degrees in Australia can be birth-five, birth-eight, or birth-12 years focussed.
In Australia ECTs are generally employed in preschools or long day care centres. Preschools cater for children 3-5 years and typically operate 9am-3pm during school terms. In contrast, long day care services operate for at least 48 weeks of the year, for a minimum 8 hours per day, thus catering for working families. Both services have an education focus, with ECTs required to implement an Early Years Learning Framework (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) 2009) and meet national quality standards (Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), 2020).
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The original online version of this article was revised: In page 11, the sentence “However, it is only through large-scale studies, such as Richardson and Watt (2006) with 1653 participants, that we are able to discern how widespread these experiences are, and test the robustness of theories developed” is updated as “However, it is only through large-scale and longitudinal studies, such as the continuing ‘FIT-Choice’ (Factors Influencing Teaching Choice; www.fitchoice.org) project of Watt and Richardson which tracks the trajectories of 2007 future teachers from their entry to teacher education until their mid-career teaching (see for retention rates, Lazarides, Watt, & Richardson, 2020), that we are able to discern how widespread these experiences are, and test the robustness of theories developed.” and the reference “Lazarides, R., Watt, H. M. G., & Richardson, P.W. (2020). Teachers’ classroom management self-efficacy, perceived classroom management and teaching contexts from beginning until mid-career. Learning and Instruction, 69, 101346. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2020.101346.” is included. The blind version of the Electronic Supplemetary Material has been updated with the correct version.
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Fenech, M., Wong, S., Boyd, W. et al. Attracting, retaining and sustaining early childhood teachers: an ecological conceptualisation of workforce issues and future research directions. Aust. Educ. Res. 49, 1–19 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-020-00424-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-020-00424-6