Jeremy Rockliff,Minister for Education and Training
The Hodgman Liberal Government is committed to making sure every Tasmanian has access to state of the art learning from kindergarten to year 12.
This is why we announced in August 2016, that Tasmanian Government kindergartens would be formally assessed against the National Quality Standard (NQS) from 2020.
The NQS is the benchmark of a continuous improvement system and work is underway by the Department of Education to align our kindergartens with those standards.
The NQS forms part of the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), which was introduced in 2012, and provides a national approach to regulation, assessment and quality improvement for ECEC and Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) services across Australia.
Tasmanian kindergartens are a vitally important part of our children's development. The skills and values learnt in the first few years of life stay with children forever and affect their ability to learn and succeed for the rest of their lives.
It is crucial that we know our kindergartens are operating at the highest possible standard and that we are able to formally measure this.
The NQS's culture of continuous quality improvement will deliver high-quality early learning for kindergarten children in Tasmania, contributing to strong individual and social outcomes.
Significant work has already been done, or is underway, to prepare our kindergartens for NQS assessment. This includes professional learning for teachers and teacher assistants and upgrades of kindergarten facilities to ensure environments support the learning dispositions and developmental needs of young learners.
In 2019 the Department of Education is developing a set of publically available resources and tools for schools, parents and the community, to provide information, assist in quality improvement and guide the assessment of kindergartens against the NQS.
