KAP calls for feds to cough up fees for future educators

In return, they would need to pledge to work in rural and remote communities for a minimum of five years.

The Carpentaria Shire Council last week announced that the centre at Normanton would be shut for two weeks from June 24 until July 11.

CEO Mark Crawley said the council had unsuccessfully tried to recruit staff, and had offered housing as part of the package but to date had not received any applications.

"Due to qualifications required, council is not able to backfill vacancies with existing staff," he said. "Should council not be able to recruit suitably qualified staff by July 11, the centre shall remain closed until further notice."

Similarly, the Julia Creek Early Learning Centre has been trying to recruit a director since the start of the year without success and at present, is open four days a week due to reduced staff numbers.

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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 student to study Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care at TAFE.

Mr Katter wants these fees completely subsidised in return for graduates committing to work rurally for a set period, in a bid to plug the major staffing shortfalls apparent across the sector in outback Australia.

"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 across Australia due to nation-wide shortages in this field," he said. "Maybe a portion of the money should instead be spent on enticing people to study and stay in these roles, particularly in the regions where the shortfalls are dire."

A study conducted by Victoria University's Mitchell Institute has shown almost a third of children in the Kennedy electorate were starting school developmentally vulnerable, more than twice the rate for children living in the inner-western Brisbane seat of Ryan.

The study also identified that high rates of developmentally vulnerable children were often affected by reduced access to childcare places.

Mr Katter said the study's findings spoke for themselves, and implored all levels of government to collaborate on the issue.

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McKinlay Shire Council CEO Trevor Williams said that 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 their children is a member of the community taken out of our workforce," he said. "In a small town such as Julia Creek that can have damaging impacts on the area in which they were working."

Mr Williams said under the regulations in place for a centre to operate, it 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 in rural and regional Queensland.

"These types of issues have a direct correlation with the liveability 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 issue and not enough people are pursuing education in early childhood, and those that are educated are leaving in droves.

"We need to intervene in this trend," Mr Katter said.

Commentators on the Carpentaria Shire's post called on the state government to drop vaccine mandates.