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APPENDIX 4 - STATE-SPECIFIC YEAR BEFORE FULL TIME SCHOOLING

Background

In 2016, a new state-specific Year Before Full Time Schooling (YBFS) definition was researched and developed to better reflect the YBFS concept needed for national reports by government. This new state-specific YBFS definition uses the preschool and school age entry provisions of the state or territory in which the child usually resides. This improves on previous definitions by accounting for the differences across Australia in the age at which children are to be enrolled in school.

The new state-specific YBFS definition has been created mainly to assist with the Report on Government Services (RoGS) and National Indigenous Reform Agreement (NIRA). The new definition does not change the performance indicators for the current National Partnership Agreement on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education – 2016 and 2017.

Statistics for this new state-specific YBFS definition are included in this issue of Preschool Education, Australia for the first time and replace the original YBFS definition based statistics published in prior years. The original YBFS definition included all children enrolled and attending a preschool program aged 4 years and only children aged 5 years who had not previously attended a preschool program as a 4 year old. Statistics for the original YBFS definition will be available to be compiled for 2016 from Microdata: Preschool Education, Australia, 2016 (cat. no. 4240.0.55.003) using the TableBuilder and/or DataLab facilities.

Calculating state-specific YBFS cohorts

Table A4 shows the state-specific age ranges for children in their year before commencing school. For six jurisdictions, children born over a specified interval of 12 months are included. However, for NSW and Victoria the interval is slightly broader with adjustment factors applied to account for the rates at which the youngest children in the interval proceed from preschool to school education in those states.

The preschool education statistics for the state-specific YBFS cohorts can be found in Tables 28 to 31 of the datacube in Preschool Education, Australia, 2016 (cat. no. 4240.0). These statistics are presented by the child’s state or territory of usual residence, which aligns with the place of usual residence basis for ABS population estimates and projections.

Population estimates for state-specific YBFS cohorts

Population estimates for the state-specific YBFS cohorts were also created to allow reporting of population proportions within RoGS and NIRA with greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible.

The state-specific YBFS population estimates in Table A5 for all children were created by:

• Distributing each state/territory’s Estimated Resident Population (ERP) for children aged 3 to 6 years across individual months of birth according to birth statistics for the same time interval. The data used in these calculations were sourced from Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0) and Births, Australia (cat. no. 3301.0).
• The distributed ERP was then aggregated according to the state-specific YBFS cohort age ranges in each state/territory. The same adjustment factors were applied for NSW and Victoria as highlighted in Table A4.
• Finally, a deduction was made for the number of children aged 4 and 5 years of age in the state-specific YBFS cohorts that were attending school in each state/territory. This deduction was based on counts reported in Schools, Australia (cat. no. 4221.0).

A5 POPULATION ESTIMATES IN STATE SPECIFIC YBFS COHORTS
	NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	NT	ACT
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders	4984	1200	4787	934	2056	578	1430	144
Non-Indigenous (a)	98042	75139	57063	19718	32602	5913	2285	5272
Total	103025	76340	61850	20652	34658	6492	3715	5416