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New national standards

Research shows that a child's experience in their first five years sets the course for the rest of their life.

That's why, on 1 January 2012, the Queensland and Australian Governments introduced a new National Quality Framework (NQF) for long day care, family day care, outside school hours care, Pre-prep and kindergarten services.

The NQF puts in place a new National Quality Standard (NQS) to ensure high quality and consistent early childhood education and care across Australia.

These changes will help providers to enhance their services in the areas that impact on a child's development and help families to make informed choices about which service is best for their child.

Key features of the NQF include:

New quality rating system for services with ratings published online
New educator qualification requirements
More educators working with children
New suite of learning frameworks
New national body to monitor consistency

Families looking for more information should read the National Quality Framework section of this website and view the range of NQF fact sheets, including the Information for Families fact sheet.

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This page was last reviewed on 01 May 2012 at 01:19PM