Early Childhood Education and Care: Addressing Challenges and Policies

This report delves into the critical topic of early childhood education and care, with a specific focus on the Darug nation, an indigenous Australian group. The report meticulously examines the historical impact of colonization on the Darug people, highlighting the resulting challenges in accessing basic human rights, healthcare, and education. It explores the adverse effects of these issues on early childhood education, including mental health problems and financial constraints. Furthermore, the report provides an overview of government policies designed to address these challenges, such as the 'Closing the Gap' initiative and requirement-based funding, and their impact on the Darug community. A commitment statement is included, outlining the author's dedication to supporting the Darug nation. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of addressing the issues faced by the Darug people to ensure equitable access to education and improve their overall well-being.

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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Current issues...................................................................................................................................2
Impact on early childhood education and teaching.........................................................................3
Government policies for education and training.............................................................................3
Closing the Gap...........................................................................................................................4
Requirement- based funding........................................................................................................4
Funding in the schools and reformation......................................................................................4
Commitment statement....................................................................................................................5
Reasons of commitment statement..............................................................................................5
Commitment Statement...............................................................................................................5
Outcomes of commitment............................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The report is prepared on the title ‘Early childhood education and care’. Primary
education and care is the basic right of an individual and it must be accessible to everyone.
However, due to some circumstances, certain individual’s cannot attain such basic rights such as
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ (ATSI). This report will particularly focus on the ‘Darug’,
which is a group of indigenous Australians. They are referred as traditional owners of Australian
as they were the first Africans to reach the Australian land (Worldvision , 2019). The key
purpose of this report is to focus on the various issues faced by the Darug along with evaluation
of the impact of colonisation and failure to access to early childhood educational facilities. This
report will also discuss current government policies that are implemented for education and
teaching. Lastly, a commitment statement will be given in which I will identify what I am
committing to and the outcomes of this commitment.
Current issues
Colonization forms the base of the issues faced by the Darug nation. Colonization is the
action where control is established over the indigenous people of an area. The native of Darug
nation are facing several issues from the past years. They were not given basic human rights that
have adverse effect on their lives. Due to colonization, control over the forest was also lost.
Thus, ATSI were facing health issue due to lack of access to nutritional food and poor diet. In the
absence of such necessity, a large section of the people suffered from malnutrition. Due to poor
availability of health services, they were also addressing various diseases. Despite facing issues
with physical health, they were also facing problems with respect to their mental health. This is
because, the ATSI were forced to perform work that lowers their dignity. Thus, it has disturbed
their whole health pattern (Fernandez, 2014).
Due to colonization, they were uneven distribution of wealth. There were also facing
issue with respect to financial resources. This is because their educational background was not
fine. They did not have essential knowledge required for attaining a job. They lack in areas such
as investing time, banking, and other job related task. Their lack of knowledge has developed a
major drawback for ATIS. Thus, in the absence of job, they did not attain adequate financial
resources to sustain their living (Humanrights , 2019).

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Impact on early childhood education and teaching
The poor health status has also affected the childhood education. Specific mental health
problems were also surpassed through genetics. It resulted in rise of mentally sick children’s.
Therefore, such children fail to attain basic education. Additionally, because of lack of nutritious
food, there was a failure in the mental development of a child. Thus, they cannot attain healthy
mind to understand the basic concepts of early education. It has been noted that due to improper
mental health condition, children unknowingly faces challenge in keeping focus over the studies,
developing concentration, applying their own knowledge, etc. Even further, these problems lead
the children to early stage of depression and anxiety (Davy, 2016).
As mentioned above, the ATSI lacks in financial resources. It has severely affected the
education background of the children. Due to lack of availability of monetary resources, they
failed to attain basic knowledge essential for a child development. The mere available finance
was involved in fulfilling their food and shelter need. Thus, they were not left with any economic
resources to provide education to their children (Segal, 2015).
Additionally, lack of monetary flows forces the children to focus on the basic needs of
life rather than designing values for their future. Children have to emerge with their parents in
collecting monetary resources for food, water, and shelter. Even government also provide mid-
meals in the government schools for motivating the children and their parents to attend the
school. Parents need to understand that the education is also the important essential for children.
Parents need to motivate the children to attend the schools and parents should organize the
essential resources for children until and unless they become capable. From a 5-year-old child,
society cannot except that he will arrange the basic living for himself. Instead, it is the duty of
parents to arrange the basic living for 5 years old children (Segal, 2015).
Government policies for education and training
The Australian government is committed for accomplishing better results for ATSI
communities and to ensure that mainstream schools policies provide contribution in
enhancement for all the students (Nunn & Reid, 2016). Following are key policies which are
implemented for Darug nation:-

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Closing the Gap
The Australian government introduced the policy of closing the gap, in which targets are
introduced for the ATSI, Darug nation to raise their participation and involvement in the early
childhood education (Money, 2015). The various other targets contains enhancement in the
attendance of the early childhood education centers, enhancement in the reading, writing as well
as to ensure that students completes the schools. However, at the end of 2018, the governments
mainly worked with the Darug nation for improving their achievements in the early childhood
education (Ferrier, 2016). The strategy of working with the Darug nation is that it helps in
refreshing the policy agenda. For example Western Sydney University adopt the policy of
closing gap by making the targets for the ATSI, Darug nation for providing them support in
improving their contribution in the early childhood education.
Requirement- based funding
It is the other policy which is mainly for the Darug nation in which Australian
government offer the requirement based support of funding to every student for the early
childhood education, but the government also offers special type of funding which is mainly for
the students of Darug nation community (Ferguson, O'dea, Altman, Moodie, & Brimblecombe,
2018). The government also provides a main support of financial for the education in the early
childhood center, which contributes quality knowledge and education to the ATSI, Darug nation
community under the jurisdictions. In the year 2017, various amendments were made in the Act
of Australian Education for providing the packages of quality schools for the Darug nation which
includes the government of Australia increase their funding for providing quality education in
the quality that is in the year 2017 the funding was $17.5 billion which is increased and
estimated up to $30.6 billion in the year 2027. However, the funding also increased in the year
2018, which is mainly for the Darug nation which was 213,504 (Cairney, Abbott, Quinn,
Yamaguchi, Wilson, & Wakerman, 2017).
Funding in the schools and reformation
The funding in the schools and reformation policy is also developed by the Australian
government. It is developed mainly for the ATSI, Darug nation for offering 1 year development
in the education and learning for each and every student of Darug nation committee. This policy
provides funding for equipping each student of this committee to become innovative, creative as
well as engage the students in all developing activities in the dynamic environment (Ferrier,

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2016). The policies were made to make the student from the Darug committee adaptive,
innovative by continuously enhancing the system of education. Therefore, in the year 2018, for
providing quality education Rural as well as Remote education comes with the agreement with
the Australian Government for offering the funding in the schools and following the principles of
reformation (Dreher, McCallum, & Waller, 2016). The other initiatives were also made by the
Reconciliation Australia for creating the environment of providing high level knowledge and
skills to the Darug Committee.
Commitment statement
Reasons of commitment statement
The main purpose of the commitment is to address the issues faced by the Darug nation
committee this helps them to work within the conflicts. The aim of commitment statement is to
enhance the creativity, innovation as well as develop the life of the child which is from the Darug
nation committee socially. Therefore to create the environment of the individual from the ATSI
committee can increase and develop under the support as well as guidance of the supportive and
competent persons. The other reason for developing the mental and physical health, this is done
so that the individual can improve their thinking abilities, physical capability and learn the skills
of team spirit in the over changing environment. The Darug committee faces various issues in
getting the quality information; the government policy helps in providing the quality education to
the person (Dockery, 2016). Therefore this commitment statement helps in getting the guidance
to provide the support to ATSI committee in enriching, shaping, developing the knowledge,
skills, physical abilities and various other skills, so that they can develop in the dynamic
circumstances.
Commitment Statement
The commitment statement is developed to support the ATSI committee t in providing
guidance and organizing various programs which are for the academic purpose, observation and
other programs which are related to the physical activities. Therefore, it is considered to provide
information because it helps in learning various skills (Fisher, Baum, MacDougall, Newman,
McDermott, & Phillips, 2016). In this identification is also done that the Darug committee is well
understood as well as supported in the background of family, culture as well as society. The

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statement is also developed in providing support by helping the Durag committee children, so
that they can accomplish the complete potential in the subject matter.
Outcomes of commitment
From the above commitment statement, the students of Durag committee get the equal
rights which help in increasing their lives; it also helps in overcoming the health and mental
issues which is facing by the majority of the student. Therefore it also helps in enhancing the
various skills, knowledge as well as physical abilities of the students by providing them quality
education according to their need and requirements, so that child can become competent in the
changing environment (Wilks & Wilson, 2015).. The strategies also help in developing the
student professionally by involving them in various development activities.
Conclusion
From the above, it is conclude that Darug’ is considered the community of indigenous
Australians which are referred as historical holder of Australian because they were the first
Africans to arrive at the Australian land. From the above it also conclude that the various faced
by the Darug nation which includes health issue, financial issues. Therefore, this issues influence
the Darug nation committee in many ways which are problems related to the specific mental
health, lack of monetary values. The various policies made by the government which helps in
providing quality education to the student so that they become competent and develop in the
competitive environment. The commitment statement is also made to provide guidance to the
children so that they can develop professionally.

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References
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wellbeing framework: a collaborative methodology ‘bringing together stories and
numbers’ to quantify Aboriginal cultural values in remote Australia. International journal
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Davy, D. (2016). Australia’s Efforts to Improve Food Security for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Peoples. Health and human rights , 18 (2).
Dockery, A. M. (2016). A wellbeing approach to mobility and its application to Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Australians. Social Indicators Research , 125 (1), 243-255.
Dreher, T., McCallum, K., & Waller, L. (2016). Indigenous voices and mediatized policy-
making in the digital age. Information, Communication & Society , 19 (1), 23-39.

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Ferguson, M., O'dea, K., Altman, J., Moodie, M., & Brimblecombe, J. (2018). Health-promoting
food pricing policies and decision-making in very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander community stores in Australia. International journal of environmental research
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Australian context. Social Sciences , 3 (4), 785-808.
Ferrier, C. (2016). Jean Devanny’s Fictional Critique of Whiteness and Race Relations in North
Queensland. Tropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics , 12 (2).
Fisher, M., Baum, F. E., MacDougall, C., Newman, L., McDermott, D., & Phillips, C. (2016).
Intersectoral action on SDH and equity in Australian health policy. Health promotion
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https://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/current-challenges-facing-
indigenous-people-australia-and-importance-rights
Money, J. (2015). The Form and Function of Narrative Perspective in Kim Scott’s True Country.
NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies , 1 (1), 28-36.
Nunn, P. D., & Reid, N. J. (2016). Aboriginal memories of inundation of the Australian coast
dating from more than 7000 years ago. Australian Geographer , 47 (1), 11-47.
Segal, L. (2015). Economic issues in the community response to child maltreatment. Mandatory
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education student population. Australian Universities' Review , 57 (2).
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