NORTHERN TERRITORY
OVERVIEW
In the Northern Territory (NT), ‘preschool’ is the term used for a child’s year before full-time schooling and ‘transition’ is the term used for a child’s first year of school. Children in the NT are eligible to enrol in preschool at the beginning of the year if they turn 4 years old on or prior to 30 June of the same year, or for Indigenous children living in remote areas if they turn 3 years old on or prior to 30 June. Children turning 4 years old after 30 June are eligible to enrol in a preschool program after their birthday, if places are available in a program and with the understanding that the child will access more than 12 months of preschool.
MANAGEMENT TYPES, LEGISLATION AND LICENSING
The NT Department of Education and Training (DET) is responsible for the registration of preschools and the licensing of long day care (LDC) services. There are both government and non-government managed services that provide preschool programs within the NT.
Preschool
Preschool in NT consists of the following management types:
Government managed
The majority of preschools are government preschools that are delivered, funded and staffed by the DET. They are provided either free of charge, or for a small voluntary fee. These government preschools are integrated with a primary school and are almost all located on the same site as the primary school, often with administrative and educational links to that school. While DET provides preschool in this sector, a range of management functions are delegated to school councils and parent management committees. Preschool programs operated in a government school setting in the NT are bound by the Education Act (NT) and the various Education Regulations.
In addition to on-site preschools, DET also funds satellite and mobile preschools which operate in a range of remote and very remote areas to service small communities. The mobile preschools visit their respective communities for about two days a week. They are staffed by qualified teachers (not necessarily an early childhood teacher) and on-site teacher assistants.
Non-government managed
Independent school managed: Non-government managed preschools are services delivered by registered Catholic (including Catholic Remote) and other registered Christian and independent schools. In the NT, only 4 Catholic Remote Indigenous Schools receive funding from DET for preschool services, with these preschools being provided to children on a non-fee paying basis. All other non-government independent school managed preschools are not funded by DET and charge fees specific to each provider. Preschool programs operated in a non-government school setting in the NT are bound by the Education Act and the various Education Regulations.
There are several independent schools that provide on-site services for children aged 3 to 5, providing LDC and/or sessional programs delivered by an early childhood qualified teacher, in lieu of registered preschools. These are informally known as early learning centres. These services are licensed and funded as children’s services as defined by the NT Care and Protection of Children Act (NT). There are currently no data available for preschool programs offered in these centres as they are not registered as preschools.
Long day care
LDCs in NT consist of the following management types:
Private for-profit, private not for-profit and community managed: There are a number of LDCs within the NT that operate under a range of management types including private for-profit, private not for-profit and community-based. There may be a number of LDCs which offer a sessional preschool program comprising of a structured educational programme usually provided by a qualified teacher. There is currently no data available for preschool services offered in these centres as they are not registered as preschools and do not receive any funding from DET. Child care services are registered and/or licensed under the Care and Protection of Children Act and the Care and Protection of Children (Children’s Services) Regulations.
QUALITY OF DATA SOURCE
Age/Grade Census
In 2010 the NT had one main source for the collection of data in relation to preschool services, the Age/Grade Census, which collected data at unit record level (URL).
To assist with DET's national reporting requirements, the following additional on-line collections were conducted at the same time as the Age/Grade Census in 2010 to collect additional data items:
- Staff Census
- Preschool Survey
Institutional environment
The organisation responsible for the Age/Grade Census was the NT Department of Education and Training (DET).
Relevance
The data collected from the Age/Grade Census enabled reporting across the NT schools and early childhood education and care sector for a variety of reporting requirements. The data collected from this census was used for the National Preschool Census and the Report on Government Services, as well as government budget paper estimates and the DET annual report.
The scope of the Age/Grade census for the early childhood component of the census, consisted of all children aged 2 to 7 years old who attended a government and registered non-government preschool during the 4 week reference period. Data collected from non-government preschools was less detailed than data from government preschools due to different collection methodologies. Data from early learning centres was not within scope of this collection.
In 2010 the Age/Grade Census collected data at URL as follows:
- Government and non-government schools including registered preschool programs: information on service operations and characteristics.
- Children enrolled: at the URL, information on personal characteristics, and enrolment.
- Staff: at the person level, information on personal characteristics, employment arrangements and qualifications.
NT collection does not currently have complete coverage of the preschool programs. Data sourced from the Child Care Management System (CCMS) is required to achieve a more comprehensive coverage of preschool activity in LDC nationally. CCMS preschool data was not included in the 2010 collection due to the required information not being collected. In the future, the National ECEC Collection aims to include information on preschool programs provided within LDC through the CCMS.
Timeliness
The collection was undertaken on the Age/Grade Census date at 6 August 2010, for a representative month prior to the census date (i.e. 14 June to 18 June 2010 and 19 July to 6 August 2010). The data used for the 2010 National ECEC Collection was for a recommended representative week of 2 August to 6 August 2010. Completion of the data processing and validation stage took approximately 2 to 3 months after the collection date, at which time the data were delivered to the ABS.
Accuracy
The Age/Grade Census is an annual schools census conducted every August. It is designed to provide a yearly snap-shot of the NT education system. In 2010 data extracts of unit record level (URL) child information were submitted from each government and some non-government school's Student Administration and Management System (SAMS), with some non-government schools providing data via Excel spreadsheets. Additional data were collected through an online survey tool and data from both sources were processed centrally for inclusion in the census collection.
After data was processed by DET, service providers were required to check the data, edit if necessary, and confirm accuracy. Business rules guided the processing of data. Both the Student Census and the Staff Census required formal sign-off from school principals of the final reported data, stating it was a true and accurate reflection of their enrolments at that point in time. This ensured the quality and validity of the data being provided.
Internal validation for the Preschool Student Census and Staff Census was undertaken using a system that outlined how to validate and edit data.
Detailed validation processes used by the NT DET in 2010 were as follows:
- Schools validation: schools provided a validation report through the Business Intelligence Centre and were required to confirm the information was correct.
- Performance and Data Management validation: the validation process included historical comparison of trends, comparison of enrolments and schooling level proportions, cross checking missing data. Schools were also required to carry out validation reporting to maintain data quality, targeting such areas as child Indigenous status, gender and age.
Coherence
In the collection reference period, it is possible for a child to be enrolled in and attending two or more preschool programs. In order to address key collection requirements, it is important to be able to count each child once. A child may be ‘double counted’ in a number of ways and a URL collection itself may not be able to address all the occurrences where double counting of a child may occur. Care needs to be taken when interpreting URL child data from the NT due to double counting that may have occurred:
- Across jurisdictions: where children and their families moved interstate during a preschool year. Eliminating this type of double counting was not achieved in 2010 as a common collection reference date for all jurisdictions was not achieved.
- Across sectors: where a family may be using a government preschool and a non-government preschool. Eliminating this type of double counting is only achievable where multiple URL collections across sectors within a jurisdiction are comparable and NMDS compliant. In 2010 this was not achievable as the NT did not collect an NMDS compliant Statistical Linkage Key from the non-government sector.
For 2010 data, the NT were able to identity double counting and apply appropriate methods for the following situations:
- Across time: where a child attends preschool for more than 1 year (e.g. a child repeats preschool, or was enrolled in an 'early entry' preschool program). Elimination of this type of double counting is only achieved through comparable, NMDS compliant time series. The NT achieved this in 2010 through a repeater flag that was supplied on the data set.
- Within sector: where children are enrolled in more than one government preschool at once. Due to the URL methodology and a student/client database, the NT is unlikely to have double counting occurring within sectors.
Further information on data elements:
- The data element maximum preschool hours available was not provided. Data was provided on the average number of hours per week that the preschool service was available to children, however this did not align with the NMDS.
- Geo-coding for some child addresses may have been less accurate in instances of remote residences or where street name was not supplied.
- Geo-coding for remote preschool addresses may have been less accurate where street address was not supplied.
- Where DOB was unavailable, it was estimated as 01/01/YYYY.
- The data element eligibility for subsidy indicator was not provided.
- The data element fees charged in the census week was not provided.
- The data element preschool hours attended was not provided.
- The data element preschool hours enrolled was not provided.
- For the data element preschool service received indicator, all children were indicated as 'receiving the preschool service'.
Interpretability
The NT provided a range of information to assist in the reporting of data, such as manuals and fact sheets, to support correct interpretation and definition of concepts. Instructional papers were provided to services to assist in entering data into the census. Detailed reports on the requirements, processes and rules for submitting data through the Age/Grade Census were also provided.
Accessibility
National and jurisdictional level information is published in
Experimental Estimates of Preschool Education, Australia, 2010 (cat. no. 4240.0) on the ABS website.
The information contained within this report has been sourced from the NT DET website
<www.det.nt.gov.au>, as well as consultations held between DET and the ABS.
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