A Case Study of the Australian General ECE Sector

Attaining Advocacy: A Case Study of the Australian General ECE Sector

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TOC o “1-3” h z u 1. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc73536663 h 21.1 Background of the Study PAGEREF _Toc73536664 h 21.2 Problem Statement and Description PAGEREF _Toc73536665 h 31.3 Research Questions PAGEREF _Toc73536666 h 42. Methodology PAGEREF _Toc73536667 h 43. Results and Findings PAGEREF _Toc73536668 h 53.1 Legislation and Legal Framework for ECE in Australia PAGEREF _Toc73536669 h 53.2 The Role of Teachers in ECE Leadership PAGEREF _Toc73536670 h 73.3 Stability in the Role of Teachers as Leaders PAGEREF _Toc73536671 h 84. Discussion PAGEREF _Toc73536672 h 85. Conclusions and Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc73536673 h 9References PAGEREF _Toc73536674 h 11

1. Introduction1.1 Background of the StudyProfessional educators are among the most important and critical pillars within the early childhood sector because of their role in leadership. Waniganayake et al. (2012) identify a leader as an individual in a capacity to influence others and their decisions in a certain field. As such, childhood education professionals play the leadership role and expected to advocate on issues of relating to leadership and the welfare of the main stakeholders in early childhood education. Scholars agree that professional ECE teachers have the difficult role of bridging the gap, in terms of knowledge and professionalism, between individuals actively involved in early childhood leaning including parents and community leaders (Alameen, Male, & Palaiologou, 2015). For example, parents and older siblings, neighbors, and community leaders directly influence the development of ECE learners, employing mentorship roles and their own experiences as well as skills to make sure that these young learners successfully begin the learning process without issues. Yet, even with this important role, important people such as parents, community leaders, or older siblings do not automatically become leaders due to their involvement in enabling a sound learning environment and guidance roles. Bøe & Hognestad (2017) found that ECE professionals are leaders in every definition of the word because of how they weather the challenges of their environment and understand the relevance of collaborating and pooling resources with others to yield variant policies that benefit ECE learners as well as a better education system. The knowledge of their role as ECE professionals makes them leaders adding on to their skills and experiences in other major areas including openness to challenges, flexibility organization, and patience (Fairchild, 2019). ECE requires a lot of flexibility in both the methodology applied in keeping up with the demands of the sector as well as in leadership. ECE professionals embrace the diversity linked to ECE and are demanded by their environment as leaders to be able to communicate effectively with other stakeholders such as colleagues, learners, community leaders, and parents to ensure the best outcome for ECE learners. In this paper, a case study research approach is taken to improve the leadership practice in ECE. Specifically, the paper will look at the problem, through the eyes of ECE institutions, provide an evaluation, and later offer a critical reflection based on evidence gathered on changes in the practice that would lead to better leadership outcomes. Overall, the changing role of the teaching and learning processes in ECE requires fresh strategies in leadership that not only facilitate learning but also improves on professional leadership as a critical process.

1.2 Problem Statement and DescriptionGlobally, a majority of industries have a proper definition of leadership and what that function entails. The definition of leadership and of a leader is very clear in almost every level of interaction for such industries. In ECE, this definition has not always been clear (Ho, 2012). The blurry description of leadership is a major issue in ensuring that the industry develops in line with others in different or similar contexts in education or elsewhere. The description of who a professional leader in the field of ECE is and who is expected, by industry standards, to advocate on issues of professionalism requires a lot of research and for more players to participate in shaping the ensuing debate. In looking at the extant body of research and theory on ECE leadership, Denee & Thornton (2017) found gaps that may impact on the welfare of learners in the teaching and learning process sin ECE. Haslip & Gullo (2018) defines professional ECE leadership in terms of educators who move on to become leaders. Educators in ECE are seen as people who show competency based on their knowledge, experiences, skills, and personality attributes, and are also capable of passing these crucial personality traits on to other professionals in a manner consistent to the role of a leader to motivate others towards meeting objectives and goals for ECE learners. According to Muijs et al. (2004), ECE teachers also double up as leaders because they not only possess skills and expertise in critical areas in ECE education, but also understand the learning needs of children, their development and processes required for learning, know the importance of working with families because the latter is a diverse learning environment, and also have management roles in supervising other members of staff. It is also noted by Heikka & Waniganayake (2011) that , ECE leaders, in this case the teachers, understand the learning system and can create policies that positively influence better quality of service available to students, their families, and the general community. As seen in these assertions, the basic definition of a leader in ECE is very weak. It lacks the proper mechanism to support exact roles and functions that leadership entails. It points to experience and skills as the only qualification, showing a lack of a framework for reference that the Australian ECE can be founded on. On a fundamental level, the basic principle in the Australian ECE looks at leadership and a leader as an individual who correctly evaluates how others in the field, such as preschool teachers, define and understand early care and the entire system, reflects frequently to examine changes in diverse knowledge areas, and regulates how this understanding and knowledge is continuously developed to expand and enhance learner outcomes. It can be concluded that this description of leadership is inadequate and a hindrance to attaining professional advocacy in the ECE sector (Hujala, 2013). Existing research fails to provide a correct description of leadership in an environment where the main stakeholder, young children, are unable to shape policies even though they are the main recipients of a bad or good structure. The current should contribute to covering this gap and to provide a proper definition of professional leadership and how it can be used to advocate for professionalism issues.

1.3 Research QuestionsIn order to give direction to this research proposal, the following research questions will be used:

Who is a professional leader in the field of ECE?

Who should advocate on issues of professionalism in the Australian ECE field?

What is the impact of leadership to the field of ECE?

2. MethodologyThis paper will use a case study approach on a qualitative data source platform. Observations and literature will be used to study real cases in Australia involving areas where leadership in ECE are explored. The case study will be based on past literature and examples from secondary sources. A descriptive standpoint will be taken where cases will be described with the purpose of gaining an understanding of leadership ECE phenomenon. Data collection will be qualitative and descriptive. By using secondary data, the problem will be analyzed in depth through observing what other scholars found about the particular subject. The method is appropriate for the research questions and the objectives of this research study. To obtain a detailed overview of the evolution and contemporary status of ECE in Australia, numerous documents will be reviewed. This will include legislation, policy documents, and frameworks. Document review will precede the key respondent interviews and will serve as the basis for the development of interview protocols. Every document will be reviewed for its salience to the research questions and key data from every document will be summarized. So as to collect the most recent information on the status of ECE systems in Australia, key respondent interviews will be conducted with major stakeholders. Because this analysis is a first in terms of a comprehensive examination of the ECE framework in Australia, there is a need to include an assorted set of respondents. In a qualitative approach, guiding of the sample selection will be a commitment that will see the inclusion of diverse voices to ensure that even a relatively small sample will be able to capture contrasting views and disconfirming evidence where applicable. For the case studies, senior ministry personnel will be interviewed, including representatives from the education ministry, children social services, and any other relevant government sector concerned with policy formulation on ECE. In addition, there will be an interview scheduled for the national minister for ECE. Additionally, representatives from the Australian ECE community will also be interviewed, not forgetting individuals from the Indigenous communities who have a lot of information relating to a common man’s perspective of ECE. Finally, there will be an inclusion from scholars and various representative bodies of literature.

With the aim of producing a revealing and accurate narration of leadership and advocacy on ECE in Australia, a systematic process will be used to analyze collected data. Because the data is qualitative in nature, different strategies will be applied to each data set and then a process of integrating the key lessons will follow. The qualitative data will be summarized into notes that will then be reviewed for practice and policy trends as well as the inclusion of real cases from the field. Data will be integrated to distinguish key divergent or convergent themes relevant to leadership in ECE and advocacy. These will be expanded as the analysis continues. Primary source documents will be consulted to find out what researchers analyzed in the past. Once key themes are substantiated and identified, a results and findings section will be prepared for further analysis. The report will then move to the discussion phase for further integration of the findings to the study topic and questions.

3. Results and Findings3.1 Legislation and Legal Framework for ECE in AustraliaPreschool has truly been imagined as a social and learning climate, and has a more drawn out history of activity and access in child care evaluations. In certain states and domains, preschools created as a component of educational systems, while in others they have been worked by local gatherings. Young learners have regularly gone to preschool on a sessional (brief hours and not generally for a five-day week) premise in the early years school. Administration strategy and subsidizing for preschools is situated inside state and domain branches of instruction. Strategy detailing in Australia is intently attached to majority rule measures (Douglass, 2019). For the most part, strategy is proposed by government serves and bantered by the more extensive local area, commonly through organized surveys under the protection of government. It is the job of government divisions to figure and give guidance to the clergyman and government on arrangement. This incorporates the creation of effect proclamations and spending suggestions. Following government support, strategy changes require parliamentary endorsement to become law.

Over the last few years, the Australian Education Council has developed and begun the implementation of a nationally consistent regulatory framework tasked with provision and licensing of ECE services, referred to as the National Quality Framework (NQF) (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). The NQF is a significant reform that is intended at creating jointly governed and a uniform national approach in the regulation and quality assessments of all sanctioned ECE services. Essentially, the NQF assumes the early learning framework that offers uniform conditions for education/preschool and care/child care services across the country (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). Upon application, the system replaced prevailing quality assurance and separate licensing processes across Australia. As such, the NQF is applicable to every approved ECE services for children. The aim of this system is to create efficiency and consistency for service providers and teachers operating across the different states and territories in Australia.

In recent years, key legislations have marked a new era for ECE in Australia. For example, the National Quality Standard (NQS), a national benchmark for the provision of quality services across seven areas, including an approved learning framework that guides the development of quality early childhood programs, providing a national curriculum for children in early education (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). There was also an emergence of the Education and Care Services National Law and the Education and Care Services National Regulations, a national system for the regulation and enforcement of the NQS (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). Additionally, Australia has introduced an evaluation and quality assessment rating structure that aims at determining the performance of individuals in the areas set out by the NQS (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). Additionally, the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), a national body, with federal, state, and territory governance arrangements, was created as a part of the legislative measures to bring leadership to the ECE sector in Australia (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). ACECQA is responsible for managing the implementation and administration of other national systems.

3.2 The Role of Teachers in ECE LeadershipThe ECE teacher is a leader on a number of fronts (Heikka, 2014). In the Australian ECE sector, findings indicate that educators are also communicators. A significant part of the teaching and learning process is the communication aspect. For the educator, there are several expectations relating to the words used in teaching, the tone of voice, the mannerisms, all types of facial expressions and the body language (Kivunja, 2015). These are all aspects of communication that are done with children, thus needing a lot of care and skills. The teacher is also a facilitator as oppose to the traditional perspective of a didactic teacher. The ECE professional, in this case the teacher, does not simply pass information or knowledge to young learners but also supports them to be independent learners. Effective facilitators, according to Klevering & McNae (2018), set up an environment, plan programmes that suit individual learning needs and reflect on practice. The role of a facilitator is creating learning opportunities for ECE learners, through pointing out teachings attained in daily actions, events, and activities. The role of the teacher, across Australia, and in the ECE structure is to bridge the educational theory with best practice.

Based on the current ECE system, the part of the ECE educator as a researcher and implementer of current practices is getting increasingly more underlined across all education levels. Being an analyst is something other than gathering information and composing research papers. From the data analyzed and collected, it is true that Australian teachers in general have a role beyond teaching that incudes researching on best practices and employing the same to ensure positive learner outcomes (Tayler, Peachey, & Healey, 2018). It is tied in with utilizing perception and reflection to educate young learners. As the opinions of the children or guardians and their responses are put into the learning program, then the teacher is using research and utilizing it to inform practice (Strehmel, 2016). Essentially, in the event that they have issues addressing difficulties that emerge corresponding to children with extra requirements, partnering with guardians, or how to make a comprehensive system for a given setting leads one to specialists including books, articles and policies before implementing change. This also is research. Lastly, as an expert in the ECE, teachers are in an ideal situation to assist further the national insight regarding working with young ones; children development, improvement, instructional methods (pedagogy) and their overall learning.

3.3 Stability in the Role of Teachers as LeadersECE teachers have to address many cultural, educational and social challenges. This is because the changing nature of society, families, or childhood leads to a change in the work of ECE teachers. In Australia for example, the data collected indicates that several pedagogical and regulatory reforms have been implemented to develop ECE practice. As a result of the many professional demands and reforms created, teachers’ role as leaders in their initial and continuing capacity plays an essential role in increasing competence and effectiveness of policies. The Australian ECE system requires ECE teachers to fulfil a number of requirements. Due to the growing demands for professionalism, ECE teachers also need adequate leadership skills (Thornton et al., 2009). The data points to a need for the leadership to be constant and embedded in several aspects of the role played by ECE teachers. Therefore, ECE teachers take on roles including that of a leader and coordinators of not just the education system but also the curriculum work and double up as supporters of professional development for their colleagues. The role of ECE teachers in Australia has stabilized over the years t also include advocacy and that of facilitators in the creation of pedagogical improvements in the group of children they teach as well as the ECE centre level.

4. DiscussionTo explain the ECE system in Australia, the foregoing research point to the need to understand and implement the distributed leadership theory. From the findings, Haslip & Gullo (2018) found that every leader in a given learning environment must have the opportunity and the autonomy to not only define policies but also make independent decisions in areas of responsibilities touching on teaching and learning. The autonomy stated in the distributed leadership theory is key to the attainment of objectives in empowering ECE teachers as leaders and providing the opportunity to work with independence in decision making (Miller & Cable, 2010). In the distributed leadership approach, leadership is described in terms of its applicability and context. In the confines of distributed leadership approach, Heikka (2014) defines the leadership concept as a social and situated process intended to meet the key features of learning situations, followers, as well as leaders.

It follows that every ECE team member has equal opportunity to be a leader and to practice leadership, backed by the full support of others and taking responsibility of policies and directions, such as the legislative measures mentioned above relating to the entire ECE scene (Liu & Hallinger, 2018; Waniganayake et al., 2012). In the distributed theory approach, ECE leaders are likely to base decisions out of personal values to respond to different situations regarding the teaching and learning processes. Owing to the autonomy that the distributed leadership style suggests, a high chance of using personal values is present and this would influence the educational leadership approach taken as noted by Radinger (2014). For instance, the values of an ECE teacher and leader on a matter that touches on beliefs and faith are likely to direct leadership actions or decisions on a side biased to their position in the teaching and learning process. According to Heikka & Waniganayake (2011), every leader unconsciously, and sometimes deliberately, applies personal value to determine suitable leadership policies or actions. Consequently, personal values are an integral part of the distributed leadership theory, a major strategy applied in the Australian ECE sector today.

5. Conclusions and RecommendationsTo conclude, this paper has used a case study research approach to improve the leadership practice in ECE. Specifically, the paper will look at the problem, through the eyes of ECE institutions, provide an evaluation, and later offer a critical reflection based on evidence gathered on changes in the practice that would lead to better leadership outcomes. Professional educators are among the most important and critical pillars within the early childhood sector because of their role in leadership. As such, childhood education professionals play the leadership role and expected to advocate on issues of relating to leadership and the welfare of the main stakeholders in early childhood education. The discussion finds that an agreement amongst scholars on the point that professional ECE teachers have the difficult role of bridging the gap, in terms of knowledge and professionalism, between individuals actively involved in early childhood leaning including parents and community leaders. Parents and older siblings, neighbors, and community leaders directly influence the development of ECE learners, employing mentorship roles and their own experiences as well as skills to make sure that these young learners successfully begin the learning process without issues, yet do not automatically become leaders due to their involvement in enabling a sound learning environment and guidance roles. ECE professionals are leaders in every definition of the word because of how they weather the challenges of their environment and understand the relevance of collaborating and pooling resources with others to yield variant policies that benefit ECE learners as well as a better education system. The knowledge of their role as ECE professionals makes them leaders adding on to their skills and experiences in other major areas including openness to challenges, flexibility organization, and patience. Overall, the changing role of the teaching and learning processes in ECE requires fresh strategies in leadership that not only facilitate learning but also improves on professional leadership as a critical process.

The following recommendations are suggested. That, first, the Australian curriculum corrects the clear lack of an independent leadership structure despite the field of ECE being a self-regulating entity in the larger education sector. A major leadership issue in ECE remains to be that leaders are dependent on the structures and frameworks applied in other areas of education. In ECE, classroom teachers for example, are confined to using the curriculums and leadership approach provided for the overall education sector. From the Australian ECE sector case study, it is evident that the integration of ECE to the general education curriculum is important in preparing young learners for the future. However, the integration of these systems in terms of preschool and primary curriculum only serves to limit just how well ECE leaders, in this case professionals in the learning environment, can effectively formulate and implement policies and decisions. Another major problem identified is that ECE leadership in Australia suffers from a lack of and a poor definition of functions and roles. It is recommended that the entire system redefines the leadership role of ECE teachers and professionals in a way that incorporates recent changes to the ECE scene, the changing roles of teachers, the impact of leadership on the teaching and learning processes, and other issues including management that constitute effective leadership.

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