New Strategy Boosts Early Childhood Educator Numbers

• The Crisafulli Government has delivered the Queensland Early Childhood Workforce Strategy for 2025-2028.
• The strategy includes an additional $9.15 million over three years for professional development to address challenging behaviour early on and $7.4 million over two years to develop leadership and management skills for aspiring educators.
• It adds to the $12.7 million Crisafulli Government Budget commitment to bolster early childcare education regulator staff numbers to keep children safe.

The Crisafulli Government is delivering a fresh start for early childcare through the Queensland Early Childhood Workforce Strategy, which will grow the workforce, boost professional development with targeted training, and address the workforce shortages.

The Strategy includes an Australian-first Queensland Early Years Institute (the Institute), a key professional development initiative, which invests $9.15 million to help train educators to address challenging behaviour and $7.4 million over two years to ensure aspiring educators develop leadership and management skills.

This adds to the 2025-26 Budget commitment to safeguard Queensland children by bolstering the Early Childhood watchdog with an additional $12.7 million in funding and 29 full-time regulatory officers.

Additional boots on the ground will ensure the Regulatory Authority conducts more visits and more safety checks to give little learners the best start in life.

The Crisafulli Government's $21.9 billion Education Budget lays the foundations for a fresh start with more teachers and safer classrooms across Queensland.

This includes a $1.09 billion investment to deliver new schools in some of Queensland's fastest-growing communities, and a $222.1 million More Teachers, Better Education Plan, which will prevent and respond to bullying, support students and create safer schools.

Minister for Education John-Paul Langbroek will hold an urgent roundtable tomorrow with key early childhood stakeholders, the Queensland Family and Children's Commissioner and Australian Early Childhood Quality Authority (ACECQA) to help fast-track next actions to secure the sector and better protect children.

The Queensland Early Childhood Workforce Strategy is centred around six strategic priorities which includes:

• Attract and retain - promotes early childhood as a rewarding career including the range of benefits, supports and experiences on offer to tackle workforce shortages and increase the number of educators in centres.
• Qualifications, skills, and pathways – bolsters the skills and capabilities of the sector through targeted support and high-quality training pathways.
• Quality – driving continuous improvements to the sector to ensure there is a sustained, skilled, and capable workforce.
• Strong leadership – inspiring leadership excellence through targeted professional development strategies.
• Professional recognition – acknowledges the expertise of the early childhood workforce and elevates the status of the profession.
• Wellbeing and resilience – Fostering the wellbeing of workers by providing access to guidance programs and support.

Minister for Education John-Paul Langbroek said a decade of failures under the former Labor Government had led to a decline in standards, while Queensland's Regulatory Authority had received no additional funding past June 2025 to continue its critical work.

"The safety and care of children is our utmost priority and parents deserve full confidence when they drop their kids at a childcare centre," Minister Langbroek said. "We promised a fresh start for Queensland and that's exactly what our $21.9 billion Education Budget delivers. "We've taken action with this Strategy to attract the right talent and put more educators in the centres, while upskilling the current workforce and building clear career pathways.