20 October 2026
Latest News
Despite overt and communicated concerns as early as June 2026, the NSW Government instead chose to ignore the NSW early childhood education and care sector at the ultimate expense of over 180,000 preschool aged children and families across 3,730 long daycare services and 783 independent preschools.
On 19 October 2026, the NSW Department of Education released the preschool funding guidelines for 2027 only to confirm what the NSW early childhood education and care sector had been fearing for months -- the termination of the NSW Start Strong program funding for preschool aged children.
In extreme contrast to the announcement made by the NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Education & Early Learning (the Hon Prue Car MP), based on feedback from over 1,000 long daycare services across NSW, the impact of the termination of the NSW Start Strong program funding in 2027 are anticipated to be as follows:
91.8% will reduce purchases of functional or educational resources or equipment;
84.9% said their fees to parents will need to be increased to replace the Start Strong program funding used for salary/wages for impacted ECTs and educators;
78.1% will be avoiding additional staffing arrangements in general;
77.4% will be reducing developmental extra-curricular activities for children;
76% will suspend or reduce capability uplift of ECTs and educators through professional development and further study;
76% will be reducing/stopping incursions or excursions;
74.7% will reduce/stop well-being supports for ECTs and educators;
73.3% will not be providing replacement staff to allow non-mandatory professional development or further study to be completed during the long daycare service's operational hours;
70.5% will be unable to offer higher ECT/educator salaries and wages;
63.7% will be decreasing non-contact time to Award levels;
57.5% will stop monetary bonuses for retention and recognition;
55.5% said they believe their parents will receive a substantive increase in fees as a consequence;
54.1% will withdraw from the Federal Government’s Worker Retention Payments grants so that they can increase their fees to parents; and
50% will suspend the recruiting ECTs and educators.
Of particular significance was the feedback that 95.9% of NSW’s responding long daycare services believed the NSW Government’s decision puts at risk the delivery of a quality early childhood educational program based on the Early Years Learning Framework.
This latest decision of the NSW Government follows:
the inexplicable increase of up to 1,000% in charges for all NSW-based early childhood education and care services,;
“incentives” of up to $50,000 for community preschools (so as to make independent preschools become the primary responsibility of the Commonwealth rather than NSW); and
the creation of 100 (free) public preschools on school grounds by March 2027 at a taxpayer cost of up to $192,325 per place (not incuding operational cost).
Moreover, the NSW Government’s reforms have largely been increasing workload without yet proving their effectiveness to prevent failures from occuring in the first place. This also in the context of the 2022 NSW Productivity Commission Report confirming NSW already has much higher requirements since 2012 than the national standards, thereby costing an additional $3,000 per child per year without generating any superior outcomes.
ACA NSW has not just serious, but extreme concerns, about the NSW Government's latest decision and its future intentions for the NSW early childhood education and care sector. In fear for all children, their families and all long daycare services and independent preschools, the NSW Government is alarmingly appearing to divorce itself of early childhood education and care.
"At a time when the NSW Government is clearly concerned about children outcomes not being developmentally on track before starting school, why is the NSW Government turning its back on early childhood education and care where it matters?" asked Chiang Lim, CEO of the Australian Childcare Alliance NSW.
There will be more public updates forthcoming from ACA NSW in the very near future.
For more information/clarification, members can contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.
PUBLISHED: 20 OCTOBER 2026
