Age Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Ryan, has received confirmation from the Government that a potential area of indirect age discrimination against mature age child care workers has a solution.

“I became aware that older workers – particularly women who would be referred to as ‘grannies’ – who had worked in childcare for years without any formal qualifications, were becoming very concerned they would lose their jobs under new staffing requirements which start in January 2014,” Commissioner Ryan said.

Under the new rules, from January 2014, childcare centres will no longer be able to count unqualified workers in their legal staffing quotas.

Those staff will have to enrol in a Certificate III course in childcare, which can involve two years of part-time study or six months at TAFE. Workers with 15 years’ continuous employment in a centre will be given two years’ grace, but they would have to start studying by the end of 2015.

“After contacting the Government with my concerns that this policy would have a negative effect on older childcare workers, I was greatly relieved to receive positive advice from Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett,” said Commissioner Ryan. “The Recognition of Prior Learning initiative, which is already in place for other industries, will allow early childhood educators to have their experience recognised towards a formal qualification.”

As part of this process, assessment of skills and knowledge may be undertaken in the workplace. Grants of up to $1125 are available to early childhood educators in rural and remote locations to contribute to the costs of accessing an assessment.

“Awareness that this initiative can assist childcare workers is tremendously important,” Commissioner Ryan said. “So many experienced workers in their late 50s, 60s and older – who are highly skilled workers – were concerned that these new rules would force them out of the jobs they love unless they were prepared to undertake intensive tertiary study.”

Ms Ryan said that attachment to the workforce was vital for many older workers who wanted to continue to contribute, particularly in areas where they had great interest and expertise.

She said it would also have been a great loss to the industry and the children involved to lose them in the important move to a sector-wide improvement of care standards.

Further information on the Recognition of Prior Learning initiative is available on the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations website at www.deewr.gov.au/earlychildhood/policy_agenda/earlychildhoodworkforce/pages/ recognitionofpriorlearning.aspx

Source: Australian Human Rights Commission

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