Katter's Australian Party leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter is calling for the Federal Government to provide free tertiary education to future childcare educators who pledge to work in rural and remote areas for a minimum of five years, to help curb staffing shortages.
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Mr Katter said at present it costs around $4000 for a Commonwealth-supported student to study a bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education) at university and around $1105 for a subsidised students to study a Certificate III in Early Education and Care at Tafe.
But Mr Katter wants fees to be completely subsidised in return for graduates committing to work rurally for a set period in a bid to plug major staffing shortfall that exists across outback childcare centres.
His calls follow news that Normanton Childcare Centre will temporarily close next month and face permanent closure if the facility cannot urgently find staff.
"The newly elected Federal Government has promised free childcare, but seem oblivious to the fact that childcare is not an option for families in many areas due to nation-wide shortages in this field," Mr Katter said.
"Maybe a portion of the money should instead be spend on enticing people to study and stay in these roles, particularly in the regions where the shortfalls are dire."
Mr Katter said the well-being of Queensland "bush-kids" was being compromised by the state and federal governments failure to address the chronic understaffing problem, and called on the new Prime Minister to act.
In a recent article published by The North West Star, a study was brought to light that almost a third of children in the Kennedy electorate were starting school developmentally vulnerable; almost twice the rate of children living in the inner-west Brisbane seat of Ryan.
The study identified a trend that higher rates of developmentally vulnerable children's were often affected by reduced access to childcare places.
Mr Katter said the study's findings spoke for themselves an implored all levels of government to collaborate on the issue of childcare service availability.
"The situation that this study warns about is exactly what we are experiencing in our rural and remote towns across Traeger and rural and regional Queensland more broadly," he said.
"For example, Julia Creek Early Learning Centre has been trying to recruit a director since the start of this year with no luck."
The Julia Creek Early Learning Centre is currently only open four days a week, due to staffing shortages.
McKinlay Shire Council CEO Trevor Williams said the community desperately needed the centre to remain open, and if no one could educate and mind local children parents would be forced to stay home.
"A parent forced to stay home to care for heir children is a member of the community taken out of our workforce," Mr Williams said.
"In a small town like Julia Creek that can have damaging impacts on the area in which they were working."
Mr Williams said there were government regulations in place that state for a centre to operate the centre must have access to an early childhood teacher, which the centre did not currently have.
"The government has given us a waiver for 12 months, but if that is exceeded the future of the centre will be unknown.
"The government also offers funding through the Queensland Kindergarten Funding Scheme, which is designed to assist services with the cost of implementing and delivering an approved kindergarten learning program.
"To qualify for this funding the program must be delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher, so we currently are ineligible for this also.
Mr Katter said while the issue was among its most acute in Julia Creek, the childcare staffing shortage was replicated across most communities.
"These types of issues have direct correlation with the livability of a rural town such as Julia Creek," he said.
"It's a great, friendly town with very minimal crime - the perfect place to bring up a young family.
"It seems unrealistic however for families to make the move, or stay in the town even, if a child-minding facility is not an option.
"It appears that this is a national issues and not enough people are pursuing education in early childhood and those that are educates are leaving in droves.
"We need to intervene this trend," Mr Katter said.
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