Submission from the Department of Education to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability – October 2025
Introduction
Education is fundamental to every individual reaching their potential and adding to the lives of those in their families, communities and beyond. Education is the backbone of the Australia we want to be - socially, culturally and economically.
The Australian Government is delivering reform initiatives across early childhood education, schools, and higher education to reshape the Australian education system and lift workforce participation.
Underpinning these reforms the Government’s focus is on ensuring equitable, inclusive early years and school education for all Australian children, including children with disability or developmental delay. The Department of Education provides national leadership and delivers national policy and programs for early childhood education and care and school education. The Department works in close partnership with the early childhood sector, states, territories, and the non-government school sector as well as with academics, expert practitioners and peak professional associations to meet the learning and wellbeing needs of all children, including those with disability or additional needs.
Overview of Australia’s Education system
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
Australia’s ECEC system is designed to support the education, development, and care needs of children, and help prepare them for school. It also plays an important role in helping families, particularly women, to re-engage in work or learning during the early years.
- Australia’s ECEC sector is large and complex, comprising two main types:
- Child Care Subsidy (CCS) approved services - which focus on early learning and care for children aged zero to twelve years
- dedicated preschool services - which exclusively deliver preschool programs to children in the year or two before school. These services tend to operate for shorter hours and observe school holidays. Dedicated preschools can be standalone or attached to a school.
- CCS-approved services are delivered through four care types:
- centre-based day care (CBDC) - predominantly provides care to non-school aged children between the ages of zero and five years. CBDCs also often deliver a preschool program for children in the year or two before school
- outside school hours care (OSHC) - provides care primarily to school-aged children outside of school hours, such as before school, after school and during school holidays
- family day care (FDC) - is typically provided in the home of an educator
- in home care (IHC) - is a flexible form of ECEC that takes place in the family home. It is targeted to assist parents or carers who are unable to access other approved care types due to working non-standard hours, being geographically isolated or the family having challenging and complex needs.
Preschool programs are structured, play-based learning programs delivered by early childhood teachers predominantly to children in the year before full-time school. They can be delivered in both dedicated preschools or within CBDC settings. Preschool delivered in CDBC settings can attract the CCS but preschool in dedicated settings does not.
The Australian Government’s key role in the ECEC system is providing the main source of funding to support families’ access to ECEC services. This is achieved primarily through the CCS, along with the Child Care Safety Net. In the June quarter 2025, 6,231 providers were approved to operate 15,214 services and administer the CCS across the four CCS care types.$^1$ In the June quarter 2025 quarter, 901,046 children aged 0-5 years and 522,087 children aged 6-12 years used CCS-approved services.$^2$
The Australian Government provides funding under the Preschool Reform Agreement to support all children to access 15 hours a week of a quality preschool program, in the year before full-time school. While the Australian Government provides funding to support preschool access, state and territory governments are primarily responsible for its delivery. In 2024, 341,568 children aged 4 or 5 years old were enrolled in a preschool program, either in CBDC or dedicated preschool.$^3$
Not all children attend ECEC. The Productivity Commission estimates that in August 2023, nearly half of one-year-olds used some form of ECEC and participation rates rose until children reached school age.$^4$ About 90% of four-year-olds were enrolled in ECEC and about 15% of children aged 5-12 years used OSHC.$^5$
The National Quality Framework (NQF) provides the national approach to regulation assessment, and quality improvement for ECEC services. It is underpinned by the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 (National Law) and the National Regulations 2011 (National Regulations) and includes key components such as the National Quality Standard (NQS), the assessment and rating system, and the approved learning frameworks (ALFs).
The NQF promotes equity and inclusion of all children, including those with disability or developmental delay, by setting out requirements for high-quality, inclusive education and care.
The two ALFs, Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) for Australia (V2.0) and My Time, Our Place (MTOP): Framework for School Age Care in Australia (V2.0), embed principles of inclusion, equity and diversity. They guide educators in developing programs that respond to each child’s strengths, interests, communication styles, and support needs.
$^3$ https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/education/preschool-education/latest-release
$^4$ Australian Government Productivity Commission, A path to universal early childhood and care: Inquiry report, Volume 2 - supporting papers, 2024, p. 45.
$^5$ Australian Government Productivity Commission, A path to universal early childhood and care: Inquiry report, Volume 2 - supporting papers, 2024, p. 45.
The NQS supports inclusive practice through child-centred programming (Quality Area 1), responsive staffing (Quality Area 4), and collaboration with families and professionals (Quality Area 6). In particular, the educational leader, coordinators and educators should work together with children and their families to make reasonable adjustments which ensure the meaningful participation of children with disability or additional needs in the ECEC service program.
[further information on relevant commonwealth ECEC programs is at terms of reference 2]
Schools
Better and Fairer Schools Agreement
The Australian Government has reached agreements with all jurisdictions through the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement 2025-2034 and the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement - Full and Fair Funding 2025-2034 (collectively known as the BFSA).
The BFSA provides significant additional Australian Government funding which is tied to targeted reforms in each state and territory. These reforms include whole of system and/or whole of school approaches to identify and support student needs early and initiatives that support connections between school and non-school supports. State and territory specific reforms for government, independent and Catholic schools and systems are outlined in each jurisdiction’s bilateral agreement.
[further information on how the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement will support students with disability is at Terms of Reference 6]
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)
The NCCD is an annual collection of information about Australian school students who are receiving educational adjustments due to disability. The NCCD was rolled out nationally in 2013 to reinforce inclusive education practices under the Disability Standards for Education 2005 and to inform policy development and implementation.
Through the NCCD, we know that in 2024, 25.7% of school students received an educational adjustment due to disability (ACARA, 2024).
In 2018 the Australian Government transitioned the calculation of a targeted Students with Disability loading under the Schooling Resource Standard (which is used to determine Commonwealth schools funding) to be based on the NCCD.
[further Information on schools funding (including the Students with Disability loading), Commonwealth programs and resources is at Terms of Reference 2, 3 and 4]
In response to the Inquiry Terms of Reference:
Examine evidence-based information and resources that could assist parents identify if their child has mild to moderate development delay and support parents to provide support to these children.
The Department funds a number of resources to support the wellbeing of students and families, including resources that support children with disability or developmental delay and their parents/caregivers. These resources (Positive Partnerships | Resources for First Nations People) were developed by people with disability, with help from Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) and the Australian Government, and are available on the department’s website.
[further information on the disability standards for education is at terms of reference 2]
The Student Wellbeing Hub (Student Wellbeing Hub), is an online platform that provides high quality, age-appropriate information and resources targeted specifically to educators, parents and students to support student wellbeing and safety. This includes a range of autism-specific resources. The Hub is underpinned by the Australian Student Wellbeing Framework, which supports school communities to build positive learning environments.
The Australian Government funded Positive Partnerships program helps families and educators work in partnership to improve the educational outcomes and experiences of Autistic school students by providing professional learning for teachers and other school staff as well as workshops and information sessions for parents and carers to build their skills and knowledge of autism. Additional parenting specific resources include online planning tools, webinars and information sheets. More information is available from Positive Partnerships | Homepage.
Examine the effectiveness of current (and previous) programs and initiatives that identify children with development delay, autism or both, with mild to moderate support needs and support them and their families. This should focus on community and mainstream engagement, and include child and maternal health, primary care, allied health playgroups, early childhood education and care and schools.
All education and ECEC providers in Australia are required to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (the DDA). The DDA protects people with disability against discrimination in many areas of public life, including education. The DDA also protects people against harassment because of their disability.
The DDA provides a mechanism for individuals to make complaints and seek redress for disability discrimination in certain areas of public life, including education. If a person believes they have been discriminated against they can make a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission about discrimination.
Disability Standards for Education
Under the DDA, the Attorney-General may make Disability Standards to specify rights and responsibilities about equal access and opportunity for people with a disability in more detail and with more certainty than the DDA itself provides. This includes the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (the Standards).
The DDA does not provide a separate enforcement regime for the Standards; non-compliance with the Standards is an unlawful act under the DDA.
The Standards clarify the obligations of education providers in Australia under DDA to ensure that students with disability can access and participate in education on the same basis as students without disability. This includes:
- provide reasonable adjustments for students with disability
- enrolment
- participation
- curriculum development, accreditation and delivery
- student support services.
Currently the Standards apply to all schools (government and non-government). The Standards also apply to pre-schools and kindergartens that are educational institutions.
Following public consultation in early 2025, the Australian Government is progressing an amendment to the Standards to include ECEC services that deliver an education program based on an approved learning framework.
Including ECEC services in the Standards will provide greater clarity and consistency in how these services support children with disability under the DDA. ECEC services will be required to comply with all aspects of the Standards. This will primarily be achieved through:
- consultation with children with disability and their families
- making reasonable adjustments; and
- eliminating harassment and victimisation.
All ECEC services are required to understand and comply with the DDA, which prohibits discrimination against children, families, or others based on disability. ECEC services must also make reasonable adjustments to ensure children with disability can access and participate in their programs on the same basis as children without disability. The planned amendments to expand the Standards to cover most ECEC services and providers will not impact DDA coverage but will clarify how the DDA applies in these settings.
Resources have been developed to support students with disability and their parents/caregivers to understand their rights under the DDA and Standards: Information resources for students with disability and their caregivers - Department of Education, Australian Government. Resources are also available to help education providers, and their workforces understand their obligations under the Standards, and how to practically implement them: Information products for educators and education providers on supporting students with disability - Department of Education, Australian Government.
To better support providers understand their obligations under Standards, the Department is developing new professional development training modules. These courses will be available in 2026 for staff and leaders in early childhood, preschool and school settings. They aim to support the development of inclusive cultures where students with disability can access and participate in education on the same basis as students without disability.
The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) provides guidance for ECEC services about their obligations under the DDA, including practical examples of reasonable adjustments in environmental, staffing, and program delivery to support participation of children with disability or developmental delay.$^6$
The Disability Standards for Education must be reviewed every 5 years. In 2025, the review will consider what further action is required to support implementation of the Standards. It will also consider how to mechanisms to clarify the requirements around consultation, issues resolution and complaints handling.
$^6$ ACECQA (2022), The Disability Discrimination Act: What do children’s education and care services need to know?
Early Childhood Education and Care
The Inclusion Support Program
The Australian Government’s Inclusion Support Program (ISP) assists eligible CCS-approved services to include children with additional needs, including those with autism and/or developmental delay.$^7$ Children must meet eligibility requirements for the CCS.
The program includes access to:
- professional support through contracted Inclusion Agencies
- specialist equipment libraries, managed by Inclusion Agencies
- funding to address barriers to inclusion, including to subsidise the employment of additional educators in a CBDC or OSHC setting.
The ISP was introduced in July 2016 and forms part of the Child Care Safety Net. It replaced the Inclusion and Professional Support Program, which ceased on 30 June 2016.
The ISP focuses on building the capacity and capability of eligible ECEC services to include children with additional needs, alongside their typically developing peers. However, it does not provide one-on-one care or early intervention.
The ISP is not available to specialist ECEC services. Specialist services are designed specifically for children with ongoing high support needs and inherently include them. As these environments do not support inclusion with typically developing peers - a key objective of the program - they are not eligible for assistance under it. The ISP is also not available to dedicated preschools. State and territory governments may operate their inclusion or disability programs for dedicated preschools.
The effectiveness of the ISP was considered as part of the Productivity Commission’s 2024 final inquiry report on ECEC and in Deloitte Access Economics’ 2023 review of the program. The Australian Institute of Family Studies also undertook an evaluation of the program, with a final report published in 2022. The reports from these reviews are available on the Productivity Commission, Department of Education and Australian Institute of Family Studies websites respectively.
Note that ISP program data does not reliably distinguish between children with autism, and children with developmental delays, from other eligible cohorts.
Connected Beginnings
Connected Beginnings draws upon the strength and knowledge of First Nations’ communities to increase children and families’ engagement with health and early childhood education and care. It improves access to existing early childhood, maternal and child health and family support services to ensure children are safe, healthy and ready to thrive when they transition to school.
$^7$ In Home Care services are not eligible for the ISP.
The program is in 50 communities across Australia and supports around 24,800 First Nations children aged zero to school age. Around 20% of First Nations children live in a community with Connected Beginnings.
The program is jointly administered by the Department of Education and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing who fund Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services as Health Partners to Backbone organisations within Connected Beginnings sites. The program utilises developmental assessment tools such as ASQ-TRAK and provides warm referrals to services and supports for children and families.
Commissioned by both the Department of Education and Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, the 2023 mid-term evaluation found the program supported both positive early educational, and positive health and wellbeing outcomes for First Nations children. The evaluation report is available on the Department of Education website.
Preschool Outcomes Measure
The Australian Government is funding the development and trial of the Preschool Outcomes Measure (POM), with support from State and Territory governments. The POM will boost high-quality practice by providing teachers and educators, who work with children in the year before full time school, with an evidence-based formative assessment tool to enhance understanding of children’s strengths and capabilities. While the POM is not a diagnostic tool, the information gathered by teachers and educators provides information on children’s learning and development progress which could provide them with an opportunity for early intervention in the year before full-time school. The POM is designed to be inclusive of all children, incorporating their different abilities, strengths, and the level of learning and development in the year before full-time school.
Building Early Education Fund
The Australian Government is investing $1 billion through the Building Early Education Fund (the Fund) to build and expand ECEC centres in areas of need.
The Fund includes:
- $500 million in targeted capital funding, delivered through multiple rounds, to establish new services and increase the capacity of existing ECEC services. Funding will be focused on state and territory governments, local governments and not-for-profit providers with a history of high-quality ECEC provision. It will be targeted to priority and under-served markets, including regional areas. Where possible, services will be located on or near school sites.
- Up to $50 million of the funding will be provided for co-investment opportunities with the Investment Dialogue for Australia’s Children (IDAC) to help build or expand integrated and holistic early learning services in areas of need.
- Philanthropic partners of IDAC have also committed in-principle funding up to $50 million.
- Integrated and holistic early learning services may bring together early learning, child and maternal health services and family and community supports.
- $500 million provisioned for future Commonwealth investment in owning and leasing a portfolio of ECEC centres to increase the supply of services, with $2.3 million over two years from 2024-25 to undertake a business case to inform final design.
Schools
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)
The NCCD is an annual collection of information about Australian school students who are receiving educational adjustments due to disability. The NCCD was rolled out nationally in 2013 to reinforce inclusive education practices under the Disability Standards for Education 2005 and to inform policy development and implementation. In 2018 the Australian Government transitioned the calculation of Students with Disability loading to be based on the NCCD (further information on the loading is below).
Through Education Services Australia, the Government provides a free, one-stop-shop for information and resources on the NCCD and its underpinning legislation, the DDA and the Standards, through the NCCD Portal: Home - Nationally Consistent Collection of Data. The Portal is the most accessed source of information about the NCCD used by Australian school teams, school authorities, and parents and carers of school students with disability.
Content on the NCCD Portal is developed in consultation with state and territory government departments of education, the Catholic and independent sectors and subject matter experts (including people with disability and Disability Representative Organisations) and is updated and added to on an ongoing basis according to need.
The NCCD Portal contains case studies to help schools with implementing the NCCD model and to demonstrate the Standards in practice. This includes case studies on students with disabilities associated with developmental delay, including Prader-Will syndrome, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, language disorder, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Down syndrome.
The Portal also includes podcasts featuring experts, families, school staff and students to assist teachers to understand a range of disabilities associated with developmental delay, and to provide adjustments for students to assist their education.
School funding - Disability loading
To support the implementation of reasonable adjustments in schools, the Australian Government provides an additional loading for students with disability as part of the schooling resource standard (SRS) recurrent funding arrangements. Since 2018, the student with disability loading is based on the NCCD.
SRS funding is provided as a lump sum to each school’s approved authority for the purposes of providing school education. For government schools, the approved authority is the relevant state or territory government. For non-government schools, the approved
authority is the body corporate approved by the Minister for the school. An approved authority can be responsible for one or more schools.
Approved authorities use their total recurrent funding to meet the needs of all students, including students with disability, and have the flexibility to allocate funding in respect of individual students or for specific purposes or programs.
The Commonwealth’s SRS student with disability loading is calculated using the NCCD which records information on the level of adjustment students with disability are receiving to access and participate in education on the same basis as other students.
There are 4 levels of adjustment - quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial, and extensive. Students who receive the top 3 levels of adjustment attract the student with disability loading. Approved authorities receive this funding and have the flexibility in determining how it is used to best meet the needs of their students.
In 2025, the Australian Government will provide an estimated $31.1 billion in recurrent funding for schools under the SRS funding arrangements, of which an estimated $4.3 billion will be provided under the student with disability loading. Schools and school systems have the flexibility to direct this funding as needed to support their students.
These initiatives are complemented by targeted, evidence-based program and information resources for families and educators including through the Student Wellbeing Hub.
Additionally, the Positive Partnerships program, aims to build partnerships between schools and families to improve the educational outcomes of Autistic students, further supporting the broader equity and wellbeing work being undertaken through the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. Phase 4 of Positive Partnerships, delivered by Autism Spectrum Australia, has already engaged over 80,000 participants since 2021, demonstrating the program’s reach and impact.
The department is also evaluating its existing resources to support diverse learners, particularly Autistic students, in line with actions under the National Autism Strategy 2025-31 and Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-31.
Australian Early Development Census
The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) is a population measure of early childhood development in children starting their first year of full-time schooling, undertaken every three years by the Department of Education in collaboration with States and Territory governments. The AEDC measures development across five developmental areas, known as domains: physical health and well-being, emotional maturity, social competence, language and cognitive skills (school-based), and communication skills and general knowledge.
Whilst the AEDC cannot be utilised as an individual diagnostic tool, it has been shown to predict later mental health outcomes,$^8$ enabling the identification of areas of need that may benefit from place-based intervention programs to improve children’s mental health
$^8$ Green, M. J.; Tzoumakis, S.; Laurens, K. R.; Dean, K.; Kariuki, M.; Harris, F.; Brinkman, S. A.; Carr, V. J. Early developmental risk for subsequent childhood mental disorders in an Australian population cohort. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2019, 53(4) : 304-315. DOI: 10.1177/0004867418814943
outcomes.$^9$ Furthermore, the AEDC collects information about both diagnosed and suspected conditions (including autism, ADHD, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy, among others), providing a valuable evidence base to assess the effectiveness of placed-based interventions and to monitor trends in the distribution and prevalence of developmental delays and/or disabilities.$^{10}$
Identify equity and intersectional issues, in particular, children who identify as First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse.
The department recognises that intersectionality has implications for the appropriateness of supports provided for students with disability, including for children with developmental delays or autism.
Historical biases in research can have significant impacts on the design and delivery of supports for Autistic children who hold multiple marginalised identities. This has disproportionately affected children from First Nations communities, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, and girls and gender-diverse children$^{11}$.
The department strives to apply an intersectional and equity-based approach to its program of work. This includes embedding requirements for new initiatives, such as the autism microcredential, to consider intersectionality and to ensure that the materials are culturally safe and responsive to the needs of First Nations communities.
It also includes the development of targeted resources for historically marginalised cohorts with disability. The ‘Our right to learn and play’ resource released in January 2025 aims to help First Nations school students with disability and their families exercise their rights under the Disability Standards for Education. ‘Our right to learn and play’ was co-designed by and for young First Nations people with disability, with the help of First Peoples Disability Network Australia and Children and Young People with Disability Australia.
The Positive Partnerships program delivers targeted workshops and resources for parents and carers from CALD backgrounds and First Nations communities, to help raise awareness and build knowledge about autism and how they can work with in partnerships with schools to improve outcomes for Autistic school students in their care.
These free resources (Positive Partnerships | Resources for First Nations People) have been designed in consultation with First Nations and CALD communities including the program’s Reference Groups to ensure they are culturally safe and meet the needs of these communities.
$^9$ Harris, F.; Dean, K.; Laurens, K. R.; Tzoumakis, S.; Carr, V. J.; Green, M. J. Regional mapping of early childhood risk for mental disorders in an Australian population sample. Early Intervention in Psychiatry. 2002, 16(12): 1269-1277. DOI: 10.1111/eip.13281
$^{10}$ See for instance Cleary, J.; Nolan, C.; Guhn, M.; Thomson, K.C. et al. A study protocol for community implementation of a new mental health monitoring system spanning early childhood to young adulthood. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 2023, 14(3): 446-465. DOI: 10.1332/175795921X16599509057666
$^{11}$ Why Formal Diagnosis Is a Privilege - Reframing Autism
Identify gaps in workforce support and training required to deliver Thriving Kids
As Government considers the ways in which delivery of Thriving Kids can be optimised, ensuring clarity of roles for teachers, early childhood educators, allied health providers and associated professionals will be critical to its success.
Stakeholders have indicated that availability of appropriately trained workforces will impact the successful delivery of Thriving Kids.
Careful workforce planning including clearly defined roles and responsibilities will help to ensure that early childhood education and school settings can continue to play a key role in supporting the learning and wellbeing needs of all children, including those with disability or developmental delays.
Early Childhood Education and Care
Educators play an important role in the lives of young children attending ECEC, including identifying and responding to their developmental needs. Educators are often the first professionals to observe developmental differences in children and collaborate with families relating to early support needs.
However, it is also important to recognise that educators are first and foremost ECEC professionals and their work should remain focussed on supporting the early learning needs of children.
While educators should remain focussed on their core ECEC work, it will be important to ensure that they have the appropriate skills, training and resources to needed to support the roll out of Thriving Kids. Any additional responsibilities or expectations placed on ECEC educators as part of the Thriving Kids rollout must also come with appropriate support, training and resources, including recognising any additional time impost on educators.
The 2024 National Workforce Census indicates that 88.7% of paid contact staff in ECEC services (excluding dedicated preschools) had undertaken some form of professional development in the last 12 months. This includes training related to inclusion support for children with disabilities and additional needs, which accounted for 22.4%.
ACECQA Inclusive Practice Framework
To strengthen the capability of ECEC services and educators to deliver and embed inclusive practices to meet the diverse needs of all children the Department has engaged the ACECQA to deliver the Inclusive Capability Project. Supported by a consortium of experts, ACECQA will develop and trial an evidence-informed Inclusive Practice Framework to:
- achieve a nationally consistent approach for ECEC services to identify their level of inclusive capability, identify areas for development, and plan strategies for improvement.
The Framework will be complemented by a phased roll-out of a suite of capacity building professional development resources for the sector, made available from late 2025 through to early 2026.
Schools
The roll out of Thriving Kids may present an opportunity to reduce service duplication and gaps across sectors and better connect workforces across disability and education, allowing them to mutually build capability and better address students’ needs. Achieving this will require careful workforce planning and consideration of the following issues including:
- what children with developmental delay and autism need
- what the best suite of services is and which system is best placed to provide these services (giving due consideration to each system’s roles and responsibilities, workforce expertise and existing legislative and regulatory frameworks)
- what is the available workforce in each system to provide the services; and
- whether more integrated workforce capability building can be facilitated.
It will be critical to ensure workloads for all workforces are manageable and aligned to their professional expertise and domains. Teachers and educators are best focused on supporting the learning needs of students, and while they should be supported to understand the ecosystem of supports available to students and their families, and refer appropriately, their core work should remain focused on supporting students with disability in the education context.
To ensure that students with disability have teachers that are armed with evidence-informed strategies and skills to support their engagement and learning, the Commonwealth has been investing in key reforms and initiatives to support teachers.
To this end, the Australian Government is developing an autism microcredential aimed at enhancing classroom strategies for Autistic students. This initiative will support teachers and school staff to build their understanding of autism and improve their practice to address the unique learning needs or Autistic students. It is expected that the microcredential will be available to teachers and school staff by the end of 2026.
The new microcredential will complement existing microcredentials on classroom management, explicit teaching and teaching phonics.
Draw on domestic and international policy experience and best practice
The OECD’s Early Childhood Education and Care Network recognises that high quality ECEC promotes the development of foundational skills like language, literacy and numeracy, essential for later success.$^{12}$ Through its Starting Strong series of reports, the Network has explored ways to strengthen equity and inclusion in ECEC systems, including policy responses to provide support for children with Special Education Needs (SEN)$^{13}$ such as those with autism.
Australia was an active participant in the most recent Starting Strong project which involved engagement between a multidisciplinary group of experts and members of the Network to develop practical strategies to strengthen ECEC systems. The final report ‘Reducing inequalities by investing in early childhood education and care’ can be accessed online, along with other Starting Strong reports in the collection here: Starting Strong | OECD.
The OECD has also commenced a project called ‘Education for Inclusive Societies’ to examine issues such as how to better support Autistic students and how education systems can leverage artificial intelligence to support students with additional learning needs. The project highlights the importance of inclusive teaching practices, early intervention, and individualised support, as well as the need for teacher training, ethical use of technology, and policy frameworks that ensure digital tools are accessible, safe, and responsive to the diverse needs of learners$^{14}$. The report can be found here: Leveraging artificial intelligence to support students with special education needs | OECD.
Disability and inclusion have been identified as a priority theme by the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO). AERO is currently undertaking a project which aims to synthesise the existing evidence on effective teaching practices for supporting Autistic students and students with ADHD. The project also includes a field work component which will consider the relationship between students’ Individualised Learning Plans and delivery of allied health supports in a school setting.
The Autism CRC is developing National Guidance for Best Practice in Inclusive Education for Autistic Students and will draw on both domestic and international policy experience and practice. The guidance will be developed through a co-production model involving over 20 community, professional, and government organisations and will integrate systematic reviews of global research evidence with insights from Australian educators, health professionals, autistic individuals, and families.$^{15}$
$^{12}$ OECD (2025) Starting Strong VIII: Reducing inequalities by investing in early childhood education and care, accessed 23 September 2025.
$^{13}$ The Starting Strong report acknowledges that “the term (SEN) is used in many education systems to characterise the broad array of conditions of children with disability and additional needs that affect their learning and development, albeit there is no universal consensus on these conditions, and countries adopt varying classifications.”
$^{14}$ OECD (2025)) Leveraging artificial intelligence to support students with special education needs | OECD accessed 1 October 2025.
$^{15}$ Autism CRC (2025) www.autismcrc.com.au accessed 1 October 2025.
Identify mechanisms that would allow a seamless transition through mainstream systems for all children with mild to moderate support needs
Transitions from early childhood education and care to school are pivotal in shaping a child’s learning journey, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. These transitions are not one-off events but complex social processes involving children, families, educators, and communities. According to AERO, effective transitions are marked by a child’s sense of belonging - feeling accepted by teachers and peers, seeing their cultural identity valued, and believing they can succeed at school$^{16}$.
The ‘Milestones and Transitions’ resource from the Department of Education adds that transitions often involve significant changes in routines, relationships, and environments, which can be both exciting and challenging. For children with disability, these transitions may require reasonable adjustments, such as changes to communication methods, physical access, or care routines to ensure full participation and uphold their rights under the Disability Standards for Education. Early planning, collaborative meetings, and clear communication between families and educators are essential to support all children through these transitions$^{17}$.
Better and Fairer Schools Agreement
This emphasis on inclusive and well-supported transitions is reinforced by the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA) and the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement - Full and Fair Funding 2025-2034 which reaffirms the shared commitment of governments across Australia to more accessible and inclusive education.
The BFSA has identified three key priorities to ensure that every student can access a high-quality education, regardless of their background: equity and excellence, wellbeing for learning and engagement, and a strong and sustainable workforce. Under these priorities, all parties have agreed to build on existing efforts through national reform directions including:
- Equity and excellence:
- whole-of-system and/or whole-of-school approaches that identify student learning needs early and provide tiered and targeted, intensive supports, in line with evidence-based teaching and a ‘multi-tiered systems of support’ approach.
- Wellbeing and learning for engagement:
- initiatives that support connections between schools and other non-school services to support students to come to school ready to learn,
- structured initiatives that support wellbeing for learning and engagement, and
$^{16}$ Australian Education Research Organisation (2022) Discussion paper: Measuring effective transitions to school accessed 3 October 2025
$^{17}$ Department of Education (2022) Milestones and transitions - Department of Education, Australian Government accessed 3 October 2023
- initiatives which support student engagement in learning, for example through greater student participation, attendance, inclusion and/or enhanced school-family engagement.
Given the focus on early identification of the functional impact of a child’s development or disability on their educational needs, and strengthening links between school and non-school services, the BFSA will be an important mechanism for ensuring that schools are well equipped to support students with mild to moderate support needs learn.
Clarity in roles and responsibilities
Given the possible overlap between mainstream education systems and systems delivering Thriving Kids supports, it is essential that workforces across the ECEC, schools and Thriving Kids systems have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities.
Clarification of roles and responsibilities in the design, development and implementation of supports will need to reflect existing legislative, regulatory and policy requirements. This may include, but is not limited to, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, the Disability Standards for Education 2005, and the National Quality Framework.
This alignment will help to ensure Autistic children, or those with developmental delay, do not experience gaps when seeking support, as well as limit duplication across government. This complex interplay of service systems initially proposed by the Government’s Thriving Kids announcement requires strong accountability mechanisms to support its effective operation.
Supporting transitions from ECEC into school
The Australian Curriculum builds on the integrated and holistic learning approach embedded in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), supporting continuity of learning as children transition from early childhood education and care into formal schooling. This alignment ensures that key developmental areas such as communication, social interaction, and sensory needs are acknowledged and supported through inclusive practices.