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SBS acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country and their connections and continuous care for the skies, lands and waterways across Australia.
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The thing that I love the most is the feeling that you have the opportunity to make a real difference in a child's life, helping them build their identity to become confident learners who are ready to face the world with the kindness and empathy.
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Welcome to Work in Progress, a podcast that follows the stories of adventurous professionals who decided to call Australia home.
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With helpful tips, advice from experts, and Australian leading organisations on how to build your career here.
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I'm your host, Francesca Valdinoci, and today we talk about early childhood education. Let's get to work.
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The first 5 years of life are crucial. They lay the foundation for lifelong learning and well-being, setting the stage for a fulfilling life. To support this vital process, Australia is projected to need an additional 54,000 qualified early childhood educators.
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Over the next decade, with almost 30% of early childhood educators, teachers, and managers born overseas, and a rich tapestry of cultures in every childcare room around the country, diversity is seen as a superpower in early childhood education and care.
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But what is it like to work as an educator? Well, sometimes it looks like running a car wash.
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I just created a car wash area. I put some water, sponges and every child come and then they say, oh, wow, they love it. They wash the car and then a couple of children, they just take the little duck, they put it in the water that we sing five little ducks, one little duck went out one day.
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Meet 28 year old Gia Hoai Tran, captured here during a busy day at the Melbourne childcare centre where she works. She landed her first job as an educator in Australia while still studying for her qualifications.
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But it was her previous studies and work experience overseas that helped her rise through the ranks. In Australia, she goes by Cindy, but her Vietnamese name still carries deep ties to her history. Gia means family, and Hoai means to miss.
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Living far from home, she often finds herself missing her loved ones, but that same sense of longing is what first inspired her to pursue a career in early childhood education and care.
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I come from Binh Thuan, the beautiful town with the beautiful beaches.
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When I was young, my parents separated, and I was live with my cousins for quite a long time. It's such a difficult time for me as a little child, you know, but in the school, luckily I had a teacher who was very supportive and kind to me. It make a significant impact in my life. At that time, my parents didn't live with me.
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I usually went to the school by myself and even in the parent meeting, I didn't have parents beside me. But I think in that time, it made me stronger with the support of the teacher. For example, during the time that I worked at the school, I faced with a couple of student bully.
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And I don't know why, but those teachers, they always appeared and help me out.
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And protect me. It's made me feel very safe. It's made me feel like the second home.
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Cindy originally moved to Australia to study business, dreaming of one day returning to Vietnam to open her own centre, but just a few months in, she had a change of heart.
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Eventually when I come here, you know, I do miss my career, my children. I miss my teaching, and I realise I need to have the certificate to working with children.
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To start her career in Australia. Cindy enrolled in a Certificate III in early childhood education and care. Michael Petrie, General Manager of strategy and communications at the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority, ACECQA, explains that this is the basic requirement for entering the sector.
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The minimum requirement to work in a what we would call a centre-based service, which is long daycare, preschool, kindergarten, is a certificate III in early childhood education and care. So that's the minimum entry requirement to work with children, and then as you progress, there are other higher level qualifications that you could hold in terms of a diploma or a university trained teacher degree.
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ACECQA is the national authority responsible for assessing the skills of migrants with experience in early childhood education and care, an essential step when applying for a skilled visa in Australia. In addition to her qualification, Cindy also needed to obtain a working with children check. This is a background screening required for anyone working with children
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in Australia and is managed by each individual state or territory. She also had to complete a first aid course which must be selected from a list of approved programs found on the ACECQA website. It is important to note that some requirements can vary depending on the state or territory. Outside school hours care offers supervision for children
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before and after school as well as during school holidays. However, there is no national qualification standard for staff in these programs. Elizabeth Death from the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia notes that some students who haven't yet completed their qualifications are able to find work in these services.
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There are a lot of people who are studying who do get jobs in outside school hours care, which means that they work generally within a school setting, prior to the school starting and after the school finishes. So it's often between 6:30 or 7am in the morning until school starts, and then once school finishes through till 6, 6:30 in the evening working with the children. It's more of a leisure program.
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It is about early childhood education. Certificate III usually takes about a year to complete and can be done as part of an internship, meaning you work while you study. But for Cindy, managing tuition fees while trying to support herself during a cost of living crisis proved to be a real challenge.
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As an international student and working at the same time, sometimes I feel very struggle with with my tuition fee. Sometimes I feel like, oh, I'm going to quit. I've give up. I pack to Vietnam.
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But I still want to study more, even you studying based on your experience, so you can get the better job in the better role, so you can get more the rate. I try to develop my skills. Luckily, they offer me the room leader role based on my experience and my certificate.
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So I can afford my tuition fee doing my job that I love.
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Thanks to her previous experience in Vietnam, Cindy was offered a higher paying role as a room leader where she now oversees a team of teachers. The new position allows her to better support herself while pursuing a diploma in early childhood education and care.
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Elizabeth adds that some centres even go as far as to provide financial support or offer extra time to help students complete their qualification or continue their studies.
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Make a phone call, speak to their recruitment team. Ask them about what support they provide for their students and their workers, because some providers will wrap around and really support. There can be online jobs that are advertised, but really it's that conversation to pick up the phone, don't necessarily have to go in in the first instance, pick up the phone, speak to them.
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It would be the right time to be asking a provider whether they would support you financially to achieve your goal.
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This is partly due to the current workforce shortage in Australia, with more than 20,000 early childhood educators needed to meet existing staffing demands.
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Because there is a shortage of early childhood workers, so educators and teachers, there's a shortage across our whole sector. Now is exactly the time that somebody can say, I have the commitment, I can support the diverse
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communities that you work in, will you help me? Our members are large providers, and they provide funding for qualifications. They provide time off the floor to do study. It depends on again, doing your research around which provider you'd like to work for. Aside from the cost, another challenge Cindy faced was the language, or rather the languages. In Australia, 1 in 5
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people working in the sector speaks a language other than English as their first language, and that diversity expands to the children and the families as well. In Cindy's room, the kids speak Korean, Japanese, and other languages besides English. With all those languages swirling around, it's no surprise that the mix sometimes leads to some pretty funny stories.
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I remember this is on my placement day, and I luckily have my supervisor. She say, hey, Cindy, you want to talk with the parent today? Are you ready? So I said, um, OK, yes, why not? I'm very nervous. You know, the funny story is when I talk to them, the little girl, she's talkative, but I don't know how to use that word.
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I said to the parent, hi mum, she is so nice and she talks a lot. But the parents, they don't know that my first time talking with them and they look at me, they say, oh, Cindy didn't mean that. And then they correct me with very constructive and friendly. They say, oh, she is a chatterbox, isn't it? I say yes, and I remember that word until now.
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Elizabeth believes that linguistic and cultural diversity is the superpower of the migrant workers in the sector. People who have English as a second language and a different cultural background, I would say they're the superpowers. Language and culture is what will build value within the early childhood sector rather than be a hindrance. We need a really diverse workforce that reflects our diverse communities.
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Finding a centre that values and supports non-English speaking staff can be as simple as picking up the phone, says Elizabeth. She recommends trying some casual work at different centres to get a feel for which ones truly align with the educator's values and embrace diversity. Michael adds that the early childhood education and care sector is especially welcoming to migrants, particularly students and women.
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I think one of the greatest benefits of working within early childhood is it's unique in that it involves children, families, and the staff and leaders from different location to location, different backgrounds. So I think for migrants especially, it's a welcoming field that values different backgrounds. We've had a very strong promotion of multiculturalism.
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And valuing people from different cultures. So I think that is one thing that is a, is a really positive thing. Working in early childhood does provide flexible hours in terms of when you work. So if you're in a centre based, it may be 9 to 3 or 9 to 4, if you're working outside school hours care, maybe just the morning and the afternoon. So there is a flexibility there to match in with your own life.
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Michael says there are many opportunities to grow professionally inside and outside the room.
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If you come in at the base level at a certificate III, there are obviously roles that you can fulfill within the service, and you can do more as you progress through, you could be a manager, an educational leader, and also if you wish to enhance and further your studies and become a diploma qualified, or go to university and become an early childhood teacher.
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There are a range of other options moving through the career progression in the early childhood sector. Just outside of that, too, there's obviously roles within government and agencies that we experiencing being an educator or a teacher in early childhood is, is really valued as well.
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For Michael, the key to understanding the sector in Australia is to network with other educators and quite literally walking into a centre.
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I think there's nothing like talk to peers, go and visit a service for people coming into the country. If you have an opportunity to talk to others that you may know through networks around what it is like to work in an early childhood service in Australia, we would strongly encourage that,
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so you get a real life practical example about what you're in for when you go into a service for the first time in Australia.
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During Cindy's work experience in Australia, caring for babies and young children in child protection has been one of her favourite parts of the job.
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Some of them, they're under private protection because mum or daddy, they like using drugs or alcohol, and then they need to live with
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the grandma or grandfather instead. It's quite important to pay attention to their mental health. It's not just about taking care of them. Everything that's happened to them during their childhood affects them. I'm not sure what's happening with them at home. I just want to make sure that if they come to the school, it must be a place that they feel like safe and loving place. It's going to protect them.
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While she'll be completing her one year diploma in just a few months, she's already dreaming of continuing her studies to earn a bachelor's degree. Despite the challenges she faces, Cindy feels a sense of joy every time she steps into her childcare centre, just like she did when she was a little girl at school back in Vietnam.
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Education, it's all about human being. You're shaping the next generation become good member of society. And every time that I go to my workplace, even, you know, when it's very tired, very overwhelming.
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But I usually I see myself, you know, so excited. Every time I come to the school, I think it's lucky. I have this feeling. I think it's very important when you can work, but you don't feel like you're working. You're tired physically, but mentally, you're happy.
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This is an SBS audio podcast. In Work in Progress, we dive into careers across nursing, early childhood education, engineering, ICT, construction, and aged care, unpacking the journeys, challenges and rewards along the way.
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Work in Progress is created and hosted by me, Francesca Valdinoci. Sound design is by Maram Ismail, and the managing editor is Roza Germian.
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For more helpful tips on settling into your new life in Australia, don't forget to visit Australiaexplained. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.
