Management, leadership, and governance in Early Childhood Education (Australia)

Management, leadership, and governance have an important influence on the quality of early childhood education (ECE) settings. Effective leadership, characterized by collective vision building,shared understandings and goals, good communication, and the building of a professional learning culture, is fundamental to improving outcomes for children participating in ECE (Siraj-Blatchford and Manni 2007). Good management ensures administrative and compliance standards are met.Management, leadership, and governance are performed in Australian ECE settings in a complex arrangement of policy, people, and practices. Policy and funding arrangements are shared across three levels of government (federal, state/territory, and local government), and all ECE settings are subject to federal legislation that is administered through each state and territory. Throughout Australia, the national law and national regulations, set the legislative determinants governing the quality of education and care in these preschool settings catering for children from birth to age 5 years, from both an operational and educational standpoint (for details, see Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority [ACECQA] n.d.).An occasional paper on the National Quality Framework (NQF) offers insights into the state of the ratings on Quality Area 7—Leadership and Governance, embedded within the National Quality Standard (NQS) used to appraise quality in ECE settings throughout the country (ACECQA 2017). It highlights the importance of effective leadership and its capacity to facilitate positive outcomes for children, families, and the sector. It also notes the amplifying impact that performance in Quality Area 7 has on other aspects of quality within ECE settings (ACECQA 2017).