Monash University: Childcare Policy Analysis Presentation

This presentation provides an analysis of early childhood care policies, critically examining the discourse of quality and its implications. It explores the problematic assumptions underlying government investments in ECEC, arguing that such policies may inadvertently harm children by promoting social subjection and maternal deprivation. The analysis considers the impact of marketisation and transition policies, drawing on the work of Hunkin (2018) and other relevant literature. The presentation emphasizes the importance of protecting children's rights and promoting resource allocation based on individual assessments rather than universal concerns. The presentation advocates for policies that prioritize productive and protective outcomes for children, human capital, and national economic importance, challenging the notion of childcare as a mere social investment. The presentation aims to provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding childcare policies, offering insights into the potential benefits and risks associated with current practices and reforms.

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Name
Professor
Course
Date
Quality of early childhood care
Quality has been used as a discourse in early childhood education and care. “Quality
is based on a number of problematic assumptions that converge to identify ‘quality’ as the
site of government investment.” (Hurnkin 2018, p.2)Quality as prioritized by international
governments promotes education care reforms that is believed to be beneficial to children,
instead such reforms proves to be more harmful. Child care policies presents social subjection
of the basic human rights of children. For instance, segregation of children in childcare
homes, nurseries and kindergartens is a sign of stigma and social discrimination. Child
mother care supported by global policies deprives children of male care.
Moreover, the mother care is no longer efficient; the woman workforce deprives
women of the time to care for their children. Child day care policies is a sign of maternal
deprivation. (Hurnkin, 2018, p.4).Policies that defines the disable families provides for
provision of homes for children from those families. (Mahon,, 2015:172) This is deprivation
of mother child care as the basic human rights. International reforms on child care needs to
support human rights practises that offers credible and better structured policies; outside
general assumptions. The guiding principles and procedures needs to identify the viable
objectives which are not set by false assumptions of universality principle. Quality should not
legitimize establishments of harmful policies that coerce, measures and compares quality
human inputs to their outputs. (Foucault, 2014)Good childcare policies promote resource
allocation and individual assessments rather than universal concerns.

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Quality is productive and protective of all the concerned individuals rather than the
regard of social investments for high returns as manifested by the global governments.

Policy analysis Surname 3
There’s need to reconsider various aspects of early childhood education care that maximises
on the outcomes of human capital and the national economic importance. Global policies on
child care are therefore important and should not be assumed as social investments at the
expense of the positivist discourse ideologies of quality.
Who will protect the children’s rights in their quest for ‘quality race?’
State bodies’ plays key roles in providing effective early childhood framework
policies that considers quality childcare based on productive and protective outcomes of
human capital and the national economic importance. The protection of child care needs to
support individual protectionism of the basic childcare rights and freedom.

Policy analysis Surname 3
Reference
Elise Hunkin (2018): If not quality, then what? The discursive risks in early childhood
Quality reform, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of
Education,DOI:10.1080/01596306.2018.1453780
Mahon, R. (2015). After neo-liberalism? Global Social Policy: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Of Public Policy and Social Development, 10(2), 172–
192, IDOI;10.1080/14747731003669669
Moss, P. (2014). Transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: A
Story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality. Oxon: Routledge.
Osgood, J. (2009). Childcare workforce reform in England and ‘the early years professional’:
A critical discourse analysis. Journal of Education Policy, 24(6),
733–751,http;//reflectionsontwentyyears.edu
Newberry, S., & Brennan, D. (2016). The mercerisation of early childhood education and
care (ecec) in: A structured response. Financial Accountability & Management, 29(3),
227–245, , http;//academia.eduAustralia
Sumsion, J., Cheeseman, S., Kennedy, A., Barnes, S., Harrison, L., & Stonehouse, A. (2018).
Insider perspectives on
Developing belonging, being & becoming: The early years learning framework for
Australia. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 34(4), 4–13. www.map.edu
Sumsion, J. (2017). ABC learning and Australian early education and care: A retrospective
ethical audit of a radical

Policy analysis Surname 3
Experiment. In E. Lloyd & H. Penn (Eds.), Childcare markets: Can they deliver an
equitable service (pp. 209–226).
Bristol: Policy Press... http.chilrights.edu
Sumsion, J., Cheeseman, S., Kennedy, A., Barnes, S., Harrison, L., & Stonehouse, A. (2015).
Insider perspectives on developing belonging, being & becoming: The early years learning
framework for Australia. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 34(4),
4–13.,https.//universaldesignforlearning.edu

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