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QUALITY DECLARATION

INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

TableBuilder files are released in accordance with the conditions specified in the Statistics Determination 1983 made under section 13 of the Census and Statistics Act 1905 (CSA). This ensures that confidentiality is maintained whilst enabling micro level data to be released. More information on the confidentiality practices associated with TableBuilder can be found at the Survey Confidentiality Page.

RELEVANCE

In 2008, the importance of education in the early years of a child's development was formally acknowledged through the Council of Australian Governments' endorsement of a new National Partnership on Early Childhood Education (NP ECE). This collection was established as a key data improvement projects under this partnership and the National Information Agreement on Early Childhood Education and Care (NIA ECEC). The collection is conducted annually with 2013 being the fourth iteration.

The aim of the Collection is to provide comparable state and territory statistics on early childhood education. It compiles child, teacher and service provider statistics from all service providers delivering an in-scope preschool program within Australia.

The following statistical entities are in-scope for the Collection population:

Service provider
A service provider is considered to be in-scope if it was providing a structured, play based learning program, delivered by a degree qualified teacher, aimed at children in the year or two before full-time schooling (a preschool program) during the reference period. In TableBuilder, information about Service providers is available through the Worker file as a set of attributes of the worker.

Child
All children between 3 and 6 years of age (inclusive) at 1 July were in scope of the Collection if they were enrolled in a preschool program during the reference period. To be considered as enrolled, the child must have attended the preschool program for at least one hour during the reference period, or be absent due to illness or extended holiday leave and expected to return.

Worker
All paid employees who had direct contact with children and delivered or assisted in delivering a preschool program at an in-scope service provider during the reference period were in-scope of the Collection.

TIMELINESS

The Collection was conducted for the fourth time in 2013 and will continue to be conducted annually. The collection date for the Collection is the first Friday in August each year. In 2013, the collection date for all jurisdictions was Friday, 2 August with a reference period of 29 July to 2 August inclusive. Some states and territories preferred to incorporate a two week reference period which included the collection date, to reflect more accurately, the preschool delivery arrangements in their jurisdiction.

A summary of jurisdictional collection reference periods adopted in 2013 can be found in the National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2013 (cat. no. 4240.0.55.001).

ACCURACY

The microdata generally contains finer levels of detail for data items than what is otherwise published in other formats, for example, in Preschool Education, Australia, 2013 (cat. no. 4240.0). For information on the level of detail provided, please refer to the data item list in the Downloads tab.

Steps to confidentialise the data made available in TableBuilder are taken in such a way as to maximise the usefulness of the content while maintaining the confidentiality of respondents selected in the survey. As a result, it may not be possible to exactly reconcile all the statistics produced from TableBuilder with other published statistics. Further information about the steps taken to confidentialise the microdata is available through the Survey Confidentiality Page.

Data for the Collection have been compiled according to the National standards outlined in the Early Childhood Education and Care National Minimum Data Set (ECEC NMDS) in order to maximise consistency of data across the various jurisdictional collections. Exact alignment with these standards is not always feasible and care should be taken when comparisons across jurisdictions are made. In addition, some jurisdictions were not able to provide the ABS with certain data elements as specified in the ECEC NMDS.

Data limitations for the 2013 Collection include:

· A small level of under-coverage of the preschool programs in some sectors

· Comprehensive child unit record level data not currently available for all jurisdictions, particularly for preschools in the non-government sector or operated without any government funding (including Child Care Benefit/Child Care Rebate).

· Children enrolled in multiple preschool programs are not identifiable by all jurisdictions

· Differences between data element collection methodologies and alignment with National data standards across jurisdictions

· Potential duplication of preschool workers within and across data sources due to inability to collect comprehensive unit record level worker data.

· Where information on the child’s usual place of residence was not available - that is, where insufficient address information of the child was collected or, where no address details could be provided, Statistical Area of Usual Residence and Remoteness Area in 2013 was assigned using the address of the service at which the child was enrolled.

Differences in the scope and counting rules for the Collection mean that the data presented in the TableBuilder are not strictly comparable to data published in other national or state/territory publications.

INTERPRETABILITY

The information within this product is the key source for reference when using TableBuilder. Included is information about survey objectives, methodology and design, survey content, data quality and interpretation and information about the file structure of the microdata.

The Explanatory Notes section of Preschool Education, Australia, 2013 (cat. No. 4240.0) should also be referred to as it includes further information on survey methods and design, comparability with previous surveys and summary results.

National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2013 (cat. no. 4240.0.55.001) contains detailed information on the data sources, terminology and other technical aspects associated with the National ECEC statistics.

ACCESSIBILITY

Microdata products are available to approved users. Users wishing to access TableBuilder should read the Registration basics and How to register web pages, before applying for access through the Registration page. Users should also familiarise themselves with information available via the Microdata Entry Page.

A full list of all available microdata can be viewed via the List of expected and available Microdata.

Any queries regarding access to microdata can be forwarded to microdata.access@abs.gov.au or phone (02) 6252 7714.

The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS handles any personal information that you provide to us.