Preschool Attendance methodology

In 2025, Australian Government Department of Education submission to the NPAC included child care administrative data.

Childcare administrative data

Child care administrative data is information, collected in the CCSS, on child care services and the children and families that use Australian Government approved child care. The CCSS is the Australian Government's primary mechanism for managing child care payments. The system enables child care services to exchange child care information online with the Australian Government to enable the payment of the CCS, on behalf of parents, to approved child care services. Approved child care services must regularly submit data to the CCSS, through software developed by registered third-party software providers, or directly via a web portal, and record child demographic, enrolment and attendance information.

Institutional environment

While the Australian Government Department of Education has portfolio responsibility for child care, responsibility for the operation of the child care administrative data is shared with Services Australia, an agency of the Australian Government Department of Social Services.

Child care administrative data is collected for the purposes of administering the Child Care Subsidy. Payments are administered by Services Australia.

Relevance

Data is collected by the Australian Government Department of Education and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators. 

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. For CCSS records, an early childhood education episode refers to weekly charged hours between a customer and a service provider. The number of episodes will be determined by the number of charged weeks and the number of service providers a child attends. A child may have multiple episodes for a single service provider for a single week where there are multiple customers (e.g. if charged hours in the week are split between two parents). 

The CCSS is the national system that enables child care services to exchange child care information online with the Australian Government, to enable the payment of the CCS to approved child care services on behalf of parents. It also provides information about the national supply and usage of child care. CBDC services must regularly submit data to the CCSS, through software developed by registered third-party software providers, or directly via a web portal, and record child demographic, enrolment and attendance information. The child care administrative data used a URL collection methodology for children and services and is drawn from the Services Australia Enterprise Data Warehouse. 

 In-scope children

The children who were in scope for the Australian Government Department of Education’s child care administrative data extraction for the NPAC were all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) as of 1 July 2025 and who: 

• were enrolled in an approved CBDC service that operated in accordance with the National Quality Framework (NQF), and
• attended at least one hour during Term 2 of the jurisdiction they reside in.

In-scope services

The services in scope for the child care administrative data extraction for the NPAC included all approved CBDC services that are required to provide data related to the administration of CCS (such as enrolments and attendances) through the CCSS. CBDC providers approved for the CCS but which do not operate in accordance with the NQF and services not approved for the CCS (such as state-run preschools) are not included in the child care administrative data. All approved CBDC services are assumed to deliver early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs.

Timeliness

The 2025 child care administrative data was extracted on 23 September 2025.

Reference period

The child care administrative data was extracted for the week ending Sunday 20 April 2025 to the week ending Sunday 20 July 2025. This period covers Term 2 dates for all jurisdictions. 

Accuracy

CBDC services are required by A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 (Cwlth) and Family Assistance Legislation (Jobs for Families Child Care Package) Act 2017 legislation to regularly submit certain records (i.e. weekly enrolments and attendance records etc.) for all children in attendance at the service. Collection of these records enables the Australian Government to make CCS payments on behalf of parents to approved child care services.

Coverage

All approved CBDC services are required to provide data related to the administration of the CCS (such as enrolments and attendances) through the CCSS. The child care administrative data provided for NPAC was limited to all approved CBDC services that had children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) enrolled. 

Data quality management

Record details, such as child dates of birth and reference numbers as well as service reference numbers, are checked and cross-referenced. This ensures there can only be one current enrolment at a service for the same parent/guardian and child combination. This results in high accuracy for child demographic details such as name, date of birth and address information etc. and the child's associated attendance records.

Data on families' Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander origin is captured within the Services Australia data warehouse. Within the Services Australia data collections, families may identify as Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander or choose not to provide this information. Those children whose families choose not to identify are classified as having neither Aboriginal nor Torres Strait Islander origin rather than origin being ‘Unknown/Not Stated’ for the publication.

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Hours attended are entered into the CCSS by approved services. The only adjustment made by the Australian Government Department of Education to the hours attended is rounding to one decimal place.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

The Australian Government Department of Education does not collect information on Operationally Unavailable hours for the NPAC; all values for this item in the submission have been populated as 'Not Stated'. 

Deviation from the NPAC standards

• Annual preschool program period, total weeks: It is a legal requirement that CBDC services must operate for at least 48 weeks per year, so annual preschool program total weeks was imputed to be 48 weeks.
• Attendance reference period start and end dates: The CCSS does not collect term-specific data. For the child care administrative data, the start and end dates of the attendance reference period are the Monday and Sunday, respectively, of the week that the child attended their service.
• Enrolment start and end dates: The CCSS does not collect program related data. All approved CBDC services are assumed to deliver ECE programs. Therefore, for the child care administrative data the enrolment start and end dates are the Sundays at the end of the first and last week, respectively, of available data in the calendar year of the collection.

Accessibility 

Privacy and confidentiality requirements within Family Assistance Law limit the publication of child care administrative data at certain granularities. De-identified aggregate data (which includes child care administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website. A selection of child care administrative data is published quarterly and is available on the Australian Government Department of Education website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information in this report has been sourced from the Australian Government Department of Education in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available from the Australian Government Department of Education website.

The NSW DoE collected NPAC data for the first time in 2025, under transitional arrangements agreed with the ABS and Australian Government Department of Education. For further details, see the Relevance, Timeliness, Accuracy, and Coherence sections of this data quality statement.  

A) NSW Public Preschools

Institutional Environment

The organisation responsible for the New South Wales public preschools was NSW DoE. Data was collected under the Children (Education and Care Services) National Law (NSW) and the Education and Care Services National Regulations.

Relevance

Data is collected by NSW DoE and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators. The 2025 New South Wales public preschool data was collected using a URL data collection methodology for children and service providers.

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service.

In-scope children

In 2025, the scope includes all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) enrolled in a preschool program who had at least one hour of attendance during the ten-week Term 2 reference period from 28 April to 4 July (inclusive). Children who were non-permanent residents are included in the data. 

Typically, children attending Early Intervention Unit (EIU) class at a New South Wales public preschool are out of scope, as EIU classes are classified as support classes and are not an approved preschool program. However, if a child had a mainstream and early intervention enrolment with overlapping enrolment days, that child was considered in scope, as it is assumed that the attendance was for the mainstream preschool program. 

Children are eligible to enrol at a New South Wales public preschool if they turn 4 on or before 31 July of that year. Priority is given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, children living in low socio-economic circumstances and children unable to access other early childhood settings due to disadvantage or financial hardship. While most children are aged 4 or 5, where vacancies exist, enrolment may be offered to 3-year-old children.

Records with unknown enrolment end dates were inferred using the following business rules:

• Each record was cross-checked against the National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection (NECECC) submission to determine whether the child was enrolled at the time of data extraction:
  • If a record appears in the NECECC submission, the enrolment end date was set to the last day of the year.
  • If a record does not appear in the NECECC submission but the child’s last attendance fell in the final week of Term 2, the enrolment end date was set to the last day of Term 2.
  • For all remaining records, the enrolment end date was set to the child’s last recorded attendance date. 

In-scope services

The NSW DoE NPAC 2025 submission contained public preschools data from 99 New South Wales public preschools (97% of all New South Wales public preschools, excluding Early Intervention classes)

Attendance data could not be collected for public preschools offering distance education.

Timeliness

Data is collected throughout the reference period and extracted iteratively.

The NSW DoE compiled, processed and validated the data before submitting it to the ABS in November 2025.

Reference period

In 2025, per agreement with the Australian Government Department of Education and with endorsement from the ABS, New South Wales collected enrolment and attendance of children who attended at least one hour in a preschool program during the ten-week Term 2 reference period from 28 April to 4 July (inclusive).

Accuracy

Data for the NPAC is aligned with national standards outlined in the 2025 NPAC NMDS to maximise consistency of data across jurisdictions. 

In 2025, all New South Wales public preschool enrolment data was collected through the Enrolment and Registration Number System (ERN) and attendance data was collected through supplier browser-based solutions which would subsequently be stored in the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). New South Wales public preschools and schools are required to collect and accurately maintain student and family information to meet legislative requirements and ensure student wellbeing and safety.

Students’ Indigenous status is reported at enrolment through the enrolment form. The Indigenous status collection has remained unchanged since 2015, when the Indigenous status question on the form was changed to match the standard national question, with users required to select one of four answers corresponding to the first 4 values of the 2025 NPAC NMDS item Person – Indigenous Status. The corresponding Indigenous status question on the ERN matched the standard national question.

New South Wales public preschools were required to answer the question by selecting a single value from an on-screen drop-down list. The values available for selection comprised the first 4 values of the 2025 NPAC NMDS as well as a supplementary value 'Unknown/Not Provided' to accommodate instances where the parent or carer did not provide this information on the enrolment form. Some records for school-based preschools did not distinguish between Aboriginal children and Torres Strait Islander children. Records for these children were coded as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin not further defined.

During the reference period, the NSW DoE extracted enrolments from the ERN and attendance from vendor systems stored in the EDW. Staff monitored and compared the data entries to the paper-based system on a weekly basis and contacted schools to rectify data at source where applicable.

Data quality management

New South Wales public preschool staff were notified about the data collection via targeted communication channels including newsletters every school term, statewide staffroom announcements and online preschool leadership network meeting. During the reference period, school staff could contact the Early Learners business unit in NSW DoE to clarify business rules and data collection procedures. 

The Early Learners business unit also closely monitored the data entries on a weekly basis and contacted schools to rectify data at source where applicable. Towards the end of the reference period, data anomaly reports were generated to identify anomalies. All anomalies were checked against paper-based records and corrected if required. Internal signoff was required from the Early Learners business unit for any changes made. 

Coherence

2025 is the second year of the NPAC and the data is experimental. As 2025 was the first year that the NSW DoE collected NPAC data, and the data is from a subset of preschool program providers, the data present in this iteration of the collection may not be directly comparable across all jurisdictions or with previous or following years. 

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

In 2025, attended hours were computed under the assumption that the standard daily public preschool sessional time was 6 hours. A child was classified as having attended a full session provided they had any attendance record on that day.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

In 2025, enrolled days that fell under the following scenarios during the reference period were deemed as operationally unavailable hours:

• Staff development days (28-29 April)
• Preschool closure due to safety risk or incident
• Public holiday (9 June)

Deviation from the NPAC standards

For New South Wales there were no deviations between the NPAC standards and data collected.

Interpretability

Prior to the 2025 NPAC, New South Wales public preschools and vendor systems were notified about the upcoming attendance data collection. Detailed instructions on collecting the data from vendor systems into ERN were shared with vendors and monitored by NSW DoE.

Accessibility 

Privacy and confidentiality requirements within Family Assistance Law limit the publication of childcare administrative data at certain granularities. High level aggregate data is available on the NSW DoE Insights Hub and Schools: In-Brief and Schools and students - Statistical Bulletin publications. 

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information in this report has been sourced from the NSW DoE in consultation with the ABS and the Australian Government Department of Education. Further information is available from the NSW DoE website.

B) NSW Community Preschools 

Institutional Environment

The organisation responsible for collecting attendance data from community preschools is the NSW DoE. The NSW DoE does not operate community preschools but provides funding to these services to support the provision of preschool education. Data for the community preschools was collected under a funding agreement between the Approved Funded Provider and NSW DoE. These community preschools are regulated under the Children (Education and Care Services) National Law 2010 (NSW) and the Education and Care Services National Regulations. 

Relevance

Data is collected by NSW DoE and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators. The 2025 community preschool attendance data was collected using a URL data collection methodology for children and service providers.

In-scope children

In 2025, New South Wales data included all children at participating services aged 3 to 6 (inclusive) who had at least one hour of attendance in a preschool program regulated and funded by NSW DoE during a ten-week reference period of 28 April to 4 July. Children who were non-permanent residents are included in the data.

Records with unknown enrolment end dates were inferred using the following business rules:

• Each record was cross-checked against the NECECC submission to determine whether the child was enrolled at the time of data extraction:
  • If a record appears in the NECECC submission, the enrolment end date was set to the last day of the year.
  • If a record does not appear in the NECECC submission but the child’s last attendance fell in the final week of Term 2, the enrolment end date was set to the last day of Term 2.
  • For all remaining records, the enrolment end date was set to the child’s last recorded attendance date. 

In-scope services

Participation in the community preschool attendance data collection was optional for New South Wales community preschools. The NSW DoE NPAC 2025 submission contained data from 32 community preschools (4.2% of all community preschools) funded by NSW DoE and integrated through NSW DoE’s Digital Hub Early Childhood Education and Care platform. 

Most preschool programs in New South Wales are delivered by commercial CBDC providers. Although NSW DoE provides funding to these services, the Australian Government is the primary funder of CBDCs. As a result, no data was collected from these services by the NSW Government as part of the ECE Annual Preschool Census. Data on commercial CBDCs was collected by the Australian Government Department of Education using the CCSS.

Timeliness

In 2025, per agreement with the Australian Government Department of Education and with endorsement from the ABS, NSW DoE collected enrolment and attendance of children who were enrolled in a preschool program during the 10-week Term 2 reference period from 28 April to 4 July (inclusive).

Reference period

In 2025, per agreement with the Australian Government Department of Education and with endorsement from the ABS, NSW DoE collected enrolment and attendance of children who were enrolled in a preschool program during the 10-week Term 2 reference period from 28 April to 4 July (inclusive).

Accuracy

Data for the NPAC is aligned with national standards outlined in the 2025 NPAC NMDS. 

In 2025, community preschool attendance data was collected through the Digital Hub, which is a web-based, central database that is used to manage the student enrolment and attendance in community and mobile preschools. Community and mobile preschools are required to collect and accurately maintain student and family information to meet legislative requirements and ensure student wellbeing and safety.

Data quality management

Prior to data submission, a user with a defined level of authority was required to enter a declaration confirming the accuracy of the entered data. Following submission, NSW DoE undertook comprehensive data validation, cross-checking submitted data against service operational characteristics and internal consistency rules. 

Community preschools were notified about the data collection in advance and could contact NSW DoE during the reference period to clarify counting rules and procedures. NSW DoE staff monitored data entries weekly and contacted community preschools where necessary to rectify issues. Data anomaly reports were generated towards the end of the reference period to detect issues such as incorrect age or duplicate children. 

Where large variations or unusual data was identified, service providers were contacted to confirm accuracy, and if errors were found, the Digital Hub portal was reopened to allow corrections and resubmission. All data validation rules were coded into Structured Query Language and Python procedures, and NSW DoE maintained an anomaly register to track communications and the status of potential errors. Final sign-off was required from the community preschool support team for any changes made.

Coherence

2025 is the second year of the NPAC and the data is experimental. As 2025 was the first year that the NSW DoE collected NPAC data, and the data is from a subset of preschool program providers, the data present in this iteration of the collection may not be directly comparable across all jurisdictions or with previous or following years. 

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

In 2025, session start and end times were applied to calculate total attended hours during the reference period, rather than using actual sign-in and sign-out records. A child was classified as having attended a full session if they had an attendance record on that day.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

In 2025, enrolled days that fell under the following scenarios during the reference period were deemed as operationally unavailable hours:

• Staff development days (28-29 April) – may not be universally observed by community preschools
• Preschool closure due to safety risk or incident
• Public holiday (9 June)

Deviation from the NPAC standards

For New South Wales there were no deviations between the NPAC standards and data collected.

Interpretability

In 2025, New South Wales community preschools and various vendor systems were notified about the attendance data collection. Detailed instructions on collecting the data from various vendor systems into Digital Hub were shared with vendors and monitored by NSW DoE.

Accessibility 

Privacy and confidentiality requirements within Family Assistance Law limit the publication of childcare administrative data at certain granularities. High level aggregate data is available on the NSW DoE Insights Hub and Schools: In-Brief and Schools and students - Statistical Bulletin publications.  

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information in this report has been sourced from the NSW DoE in consultation with the ABS and the Australian Government Department of Education. Further information is available from the NSW DoE website.

For the 2025 NPAC, the Vic. DE submitted a subset of total preschool data per transitional arrangements agreed with the ABS and the Australian Government Department of Education. For further details, see Institutional Environment, Relevance, Accuracy, and Coherence sections. 

Institutional Environment

The attendance data for the NPAC 2025 submission from the Vic. DE was sourced from API-enabled third-party attendance software providers via the ARRIVAL attendance platform, on behalf of kindergarten providers using their software. This marked a change from 2024 when data was collected directly from nine kindergarten providers under Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs).

This attendance data was supplemented with Child enrolment and Service data from Vic. DE’s internal Kindergarten Information Management System (KIMS). KIMS is a Salesforce-based system used to manage funding of early learning services. Data in KIMS is collected in accordance with Funding and Service Agreement requirements. 

Relevance

Data was collected by Vic. DE and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators. 

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Victorian submission and is provided by the Australian Government Department of Education. URL data collection methodology was employed, with attendance captured at the individual enrolment and attendance episode level.

In-scope children

Only children who were active during Term 2 and enrolled in their first year of funded Four-Year-Old preschool, also known as the YBFS, were considered in scope for Victoria’s NPAC 2025 submission. This includes children who were non-permanent residents. Children who did not meet the YBFS criteria were considered out-of-scope and excluded from the collection. Children attending services that did not collect electronic childcare attendance data through one of the API-enabled third-party attendance software providers were also excluded. Overall, approximately 27% of YBFS enrolments in Victoria were included in the submission, based on Victoria’s number of eligible child records, divided by their number of 4 year old enrolments in 2025. 

In-scope services

Services that were active, funded and offering a Four-Year-Old childcare program in Term 2 were in-scope. In 2025, Vic. DE used for the first time a third-party software to collect electronically childcare attendance data from kindergarten sessional services to support the NPAC. This sample comprised 512 services managed by 140 service providers, which account for approximately 27 percent of YBFS enrolments in Victoria. Of these 512 services, 134 also provided attendance data in 2024 while 378 supplied data for the first time in 2025. This is due to Vic. DE’s change in attendance data collection approach from 2024 to 2025 (see Institutional Environment and Relevance sections). 

Services that submitted data directly to Vic. DE in 2024 but not via a participating third-party software provider in 2025, would not have their data reported in 2025. The data from this sample is supplemented by CBDC data provided by the Australian Government Department of Education from the CCSS. 

Services not offering a funded YBFS program or not collecting electronic attendance data through one of the API-enabled software providers were excluded.

Timeliness

Vic. DE received data from services between 8 July 2025 and 3 September 2025. This data was merged with additional data from KIMS which was extracted on 30 September 2025.

Reference period

The reference period was Term 2 of the Victorian school year, from 22 April 2025 to 4 July 2025.

The Vic. DE compiled, processed, and validated the data before submitting it to the ABS in November 2025.

Accuracy

The attendance records were collected solely for the NPAC. 

Response rates

Responses were received for all 512 services managed by the 140 service providers that were included in the sample for the 2025 NPAC data submission. 

Data quality management

Checks were undertaken to confirm attendance data only referred to funded enrolments. For example, attendance records that could not be linked to an active and funded enrolment record were removed. Additionally, attendance records were limited to only to dates within the reference period and records that did not attend during the reference period were not included.

Checks for duplicated enrolments and attendance records were undertaken and duplicate records were removed. 

Service data in KIMS was received through a workflow which included validation and completeness checks. 

Coherence

Due to Vic. DE’s change in attendance data collection approach from 2024 to 2025 (see Institutional Environment and Relevance sections) the scope of preschool services included in the 2024 data submission does not align with the 2025 data submission (see In-scope Service section). Caution should be used when making any year-on-year comparisons of the Victorian data for dedicated preschools.  

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Hours attended during the reference period were calculated by summing the weekly attendance hours for each child after weekly attendance hours were capped to capture attendance within funding limits. Attendance hours were calculated as per the NPAC counting rules and are based on the length of a session for each child reported as attending, not arrival and departure times.

Vic. DE commenced rollout of its pre-prep program in 2025, allowing children enrolled in YBFS to access between 16 and 30 hours per week of funded kindergarten. The first year of rollout included services in six local government areas (LGAs).

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

Operationally unavailable hours were not collected in 2025. 

Deviation from the NPAC standards

For Victoria there were no deviations between the NPAC standards and data collected.

Interpretability

The Vic. DE provides information on funding criteria and data collection responsibilities in the Kindergarten funding guide available on the Vic. DE website. 

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Accessibility 

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Information source

The information in this report has been sourced from the Vic. DE in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available from the Vic. DE website.

Institutional Environment

The organisation responsible for collecting Queensland data for the 2025 NPAC is the QLD DoE. Data for the 2025 NPAC is collected under the Education and Care Services Act 2013 (Qld), the Education and Care Service National Law 2011 (Qld) and the Education (General Provisions) Act 2006 (Qld).

Qld DoE supplied data from two sources: for all non-government services via the Queensland Government’s QGrants system and for all state-delivered kindergarten services via the Qld DoE OneSchool system.

Relevance

Qld DoE supplied data to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators. 

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Queensland submission and is provided by the Australian Government Department of Education.

URL data collection methodology was employed for children and service providers.

In-scope children

In 2025, the scope of the Queensland NPAC submission includes all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) who attended a preschool program for at least one hour at any time during Term 2, 2025. 

This includes children who were non-permanent residents.  

In-scope services

The services in-scope for the 2025 NPAC were all Queensland preschool or child-care services that were not in receipt of the CCS during the reference period.  

Timeliness

Data was collected over the reference period and extracted on 18 September 2025. The Qld DoE compiled, processed and validated the data before submitting it to the ABS on 3 November 2025.

Reference period

The reference period for Queensland was Term 2, 2025, covering the 10-week period from 21 April to 27 June 2025 for all services, except for 17 independent school services which operated until Week 9.

Data from the reference period was extrapolated by the ABS to the entire 2025 Queensland school year for calculating attendance performance and conducting subsequent analysis.

Accuracy

Records for children enrolled in preschool were sourced from Queensland’s state school enrolment system (OneSchool) while Queensland’s grant management system (QGrants) was the source for records of children enrolled in sessional kindergartens and a small number of CBDC services not in the CCS system.

QGrants is used by non-government providers to apply for approved kindergarten program provider status and funding. As part of their agreements with Qld DoE, providers are required to submit a range of data to QGrants for each service at the end of a funding period (e.g., a quarter or term). This includes child level details and daily enrolment and attendance hours which are recorded by services in their software managements systems according to specifications outlined by the department. 

Response rates

All 122 State-delivered kindergarten services with active registrations responded to the collection and a further 419 (out of 421) non-government services also responded to the collection. This represented an overall response rate of 99.6%.

Data quality management

Both QGrants and Oneschool include a range of input validations to support data quality. For example, the QGrants system generates warnings and validations which check whether dates of birth are within the eligible ranges and that child names are entered rather than initials.

Upon extraction, the data was also subject to a series of interrogations and validations to ensure that the information was complete, internally consistent and within fixed known parameters. For example, edits were run to ensure that a child’s daily attendance hours did not exceed their enrolment hours on a particular day, that no child had attendance hours on a public holiday, to identify and resolve duplicate records at a service level and to resolve incomplete or conflicting address (postcode/suburb) information.

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

The OneSchool and QGrants systems accurately reported hours of enrolment and attendance daily. Overall, the data was of sufficient quality with only a small number of records requiring adjustment.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

Operationally unavailable hours are not explicitly recorded in the OneSchool or QGrants systems and have been estimated based on patterns of child attendance at a service level over time and the timing of public and local holidays. 

To identify operationally unavailable days, Queensland calculated the number of children attending on a given day as a proportion of those enrolled on that day at a service. If this proportion was less than a set threshold, the day was flagged and investigated to determine whether it was a non-operational day.  

If a child was enrolled on an operationally unavailable day their enrolment hours were attributed to their operationally unavailable hours.

Through the investigation process, it was shown that one kindergarten service was non-operational for the first three weeks of the term. This was due to cyclone damage.

Deviation from the NPAC standards

For Queensland there were no deviations between the NPAC standards and data collected.

Interpretability

Data specifications were provided to assist third party software providers and non‑government services with the collection and reporting of child level enrolment and attendance data through QGrants. Documentation is also available on the Qld DoE website and in the OneSchool system to assist services and schools with the delivery of kindergarten and attendance recording.

Accessibility

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information contained within this report has been provided by the Qld DoE in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available at the Qld DoE website.

Institutional Environment

South Australia's Department for Education (SA DfE) operated standalone and school-based preschools enter their data into the Early Years System (EYS) or the Education Management System (EMS). The SA DfE preschools using the EYS undertake a data submission process into the Early Childhood Data System (DAC), whereas EMS users have their data extracted and uploaded by the SA DfE corporate office. Non-government sessional preschool providers who are not CCS-approved services submit their data via the SA DfE’s Non-Government Preschool Data System (NGPDS).

The data was collected under the Education and Children Services Act 2019 (SA). The SA DfE corporate office extracted and compiled the data for submission to the ABS.

Relevance

Data is collected by the SA DfE and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators.

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the South Australian submission and is provided by the Australian Government Department of Education. 

URL data collection methodology was employed for children and service providers. 

In-scope children

The scope of the SA DfE’s 2025 NPAC submission is all children aged 3 to 5 years (inclusive) who were enrolled in and attended a preschool program at an in-scope service during the ten-week Term 2 reference period 28 April to 4 July (inclusive).  This includes children who were non-permanent residents.

Under the SA DfE preschool enrolment policy, SA DfE operated preschools have two major enrolment intakes each year, where all children are eligible to access their YBFS preschool entitlement (15 hours per week). All children are eligible to commence preschool in the first intake from Term 1 in January of that year if they turn 4 years of age by 1 May of the same year. For the second (or mid-year) intake, children can commence preschool from Term 3 in July of that year if they turn 4 years of age between 1 May and 31 October of the same year. 

Aboriginal children and children who have been or are in care (i.e. under the guardianship of the Chief Executive of the Department for Child Protection), are eligible to attend preschool after their 3rd birthday. In these circumstances, a child may be enrolled at any time after their 3rd birthday and attend a preschool program for an average of 15 hours per week. Their entitlement of 15 hours per week is not limited to 12 months and they can continue in preschool up until their 6th birthday. 

Children transferring from an interstate or overseas preschool, who turn 4 years of age during the year, are eligible to continue their learning and be enrolled in a South Australian government preschool. A parent who is a full-time serving member of the permanent navy, the regular army, or the permanent air force, who has a child who turns 4 years of age on or before 31 July, can choose to have their child start preschool at the beginning of that year (i.e. first intake).

Some funded preschool programs operating in non-government in-scope services also provide preschool to 3-year-old children. The SA DfE does not obligate these services to submit data for these children in the NPAC unless they are enrolled in a SA DfE funded preschool program in their YBFS. Any data received for 3-year-old children from these non-government services (regardless of whether they are in their YBFS) were included in the SA DfE NPAC submission.

In-scope services

In-scope services in the NPAC for South Australia included government managed preschool services (including preschools integrated with a community managed child care service) or government funded preschool programs operating in non-government standalone or school-based preschool services that are not approved for the CCS. Out of scope were preschool services that receive no funding for their preschool program from the SA DfE, and CCS-approved non-government services.

Timeliness

Data was collected over the reference period and extracted on 7 October 2025. The SA DfE compiled, processed and validated the data before submitting it to the ABS in November 2025.

Reference period

The reference period for all sites was from 28 April 2025 to 4 July 2025.

Accuracy

In 2025, the NPAC for South Australia utilised three systems: one for non-government preschool providers and two for department preschools. The EYS and the EMS are web-based preschool administration systems used by SA DfE preschools in South Australia. Non-government preschool providers that are funded by the department use the NGPDS to submit the data required for the NPAC.

The NGPDS was developed as a web-based preschool data reporting system that serves the dual purpose of collecting data requirements for grant funding administration as well as to satisfy state and national reporting obligations. The EYS, EMS and NGPDS have been developed with the capability of importing data from other administrative systems (e.g. the CCSS) to reduce respondent burden and input error. The EYS, EMS and NGPDS have validation rules built in to ensure services are submitting accurate data that is compliant with the NPAC standards.

The SA DfE collated data collected from all systems using a data repository known as the Early Childhood Data System (DAC). The DAC allows for the SA DfE corporate office to administer a data collection and to undertake quality assurance processes on the data received from service providers. The DAC also performs sequential match coding for children enrolled in preschool across multiple services. Service provider details are stored and maintained in the Location Services System, from which data for the NPAC were also obtained.

Aboriginal children are identified by the SA DfE through the standard question "Is the child of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin?" on the Preschool Enrolment Form.

Response rates

All funded sites that are not CCS-approved submitted data for the collection, for a response rate of 100%. 

Data quality management

Before collecting the data sites on EMS were monitored daily to check the data to ensure dates, campuses, attendances were entered correctly. Sites on EYS checked their data before they submitted it. Once data was extracted checks were made to ensure data made sense, e.g. gender, YBFS, expected start date. 

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Preschool services record their available sessions and children are booked into these sessions each week. If a child attends the booked session, then those booked hours count towards the hours attended.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

If an in-scope preschool service in South Australia had any eligible booked sessions cancelled, then the booked hours have been reported as operationally unavailable hours in accordance with the NPAC standards for the children that were not able to attend.

Deviation from the NPAC standards

For South Australia there were no deviations between the NPAC standards and data collected.

Interpretability

The systems used by in-scope preschool services have been configured to effectively collect all data required for the NPAC. SA DfE operated preschool services are provided with EMS or EYS customised instructions available online. A dedicated EYS/EMS Support Team was in place to support users with technical issues or queries and the Data Management and Reporting team were available to respond to any data related questions.

In-scope non-government services were provided personalised online training on the NPAC requirements prior to the commencement of the collection and customer support if required during the collection. 

Accessibility 

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information contained within this report has been provided by SA DfE in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available on the SA DfE website.

Institutional Environment

The organisation responsible for the NPAC for Western Australia is the Western Australia Department of Education (WA DoE). Data for 2025 was collected under the School Education Act 1999 (WA).

URL data is collected using the Student Census System. The data is sourced differently for public and non-government schools:

• Public school attendance data is loaded from school servers and confirmed as correct via the Student Census System
• Non-government school attendance data is loaded via a comma-separated value file to the Student Census System

The collected data is placed in a data warehouse and WA DoE compiles, process and validates the URL data before submission to the ABS. 

Relevance

Data is collected by WA DoE and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators.  

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. The 2025 Student Census System used a URL data collection methodology for children and service providers. Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Western Australian submission and is provided by the Department.

In-scope children

The scope of the Western Australian NPAC 2025 submission is all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) who were enrolled in and attended a preschool program at any time during the ten-week Term 2 reference period (28 April to 4 July inclusive). In Western Australia students aged 4 by 30 June are enrolled in childcare in their YBFS. This includes children who were non-permanent residents. Students attending the School of Special Education Needs: Sensory are excluded from the collection.

In-scope services

All registered and funded schools and community-based preschools operating under provisions of the School Education Act 1999 (WA) were in-scope for the NPAC. The School of Special Education Needs: Sensory is excluded from the collection. Preschool programs provided in CBDC settings are not funded or regulated by WA DoE and so are excluded from the collection.

Timeliness

Data is collected over the reference period and extracted during the Semester 2 Student Census which was undertaken on 1 August 2025. The WA DoE compiled, processed and validated the data before submitting it to the ABS in October 2025.

Reference period 

The reference period for Western Australia was Term 2, 2025. For public school services this was from 28 April to 4 July 2025. Non-government schools generally have some minor variations to the start and/or end date. 

Data from the reference is extrapolated by the ABS to the entire year for calculation of attendance performance and subsequent analysis.

Accuracy

Government and community preschool data was obtained through a daily data harvesting process from each school’s administrative system, which is fed into the Student Information Database (SID). The SID is the primary source of URL data for public schools. The SID data was uploaded into the WA DoE Student Census System where the data was checked, verified, and endorsed as accurate by each school principal. Non-government schools uploaded URL data to the WA DoE's Student Census System with attendance data for any child enrolled during Term 2.

Following the validation checks detailed below, government, non-government and community preschool data collected through the Western Australia August School Census was then stored in the Student Census System data warehouse and extracted for the NPAC.

Response rates

937 schools provided data for the NPAC. While a definitive response rate is difficult to determine as there are no other collections with the same reference period, WA DoE is confident that all schools with preschool enrolments in Term 2 have provided URL data for the NPAC. Non-government schools that are authorised to enrol preschool students as per their registration were required to clearly indicate if there were any preschool enrolments during Term 2. 

Data quality management

Internal validation processes for the NPAC occurred at three different points of the process. The WA DoE Student Census System had a series of in-built validation rules, some of which required the school to edit data before continuing, while other rules generated warnings alerting the user to anomalies. A second set of validation processes were run by the WA August Student Census team, using both routine and ad-hoc validation methods to examine data while it was assembled into working files. The third set of validation rules were built into the custom software which extracts data from the data warehouse to produce the files in the format required for NPAC.

Indigenous students are identified at enrolment using a standard enrolment form question. The coding of the responses is as per the NECECC, i.e. 1 - 4, and 9 for not stated or inadequately described. Schools' student information systems do not allow valid entries other than prescribed. WA DoE is confident it achieves a very high level of accuracy of its Indigenous identification, with results showing a high level of concordance with other independent measures/estimates (e.g. ABS Estimated Resident Populations for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians).

This is attributed to a strong push within the Western Australia school sector (in which most preschools reside) to address:

• learning needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
• Aboriginal Education Officer involvement in schools to liaise with local Aboriginal communities to assist them enrol their children where applicable
• a student-centred funding model in the Western Australia public school system which provides a higher rate of funding for students (including those in preschool) who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students to address their needs.

Schools' census data is also subjected to audit by the WA DoE.

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

The hours attended during the reference period are calculated as follows:

• Public schools’ student attendance is validated by the school principal through the Student Census System and with each session being three hours in duration, the attended hours are calculated. This is an estimated value because Western Australia collects and reports attendance as half-day session, not as a time-based (hourly) value.
• Non-government schools provide the number of sessions in the reference period as well as the duration of each session on average. Sessions may be reported as half-day sessions or full-day sessions to accommodate the variations among non-government schools. Hours attended are calculated by multiplying the number of sessions in the reference period by the average duration of the session at the school. Students with zero attendance hours were excluded from the data when submitted to the ABS by the WA DoE in October 2025. 

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

Operationally unavailable hours during the reference period are calculated as follows:

• For each student enrolled at a public school, the attendance pattern was analysed to determine if one of the operationally unavailable days affected the student’s attendance. In limited circumstances such as when a student changes their attendance pattern during the term this may result in over or underestimation of operationally unavailable sessions.
• Non-government schools provided the number of sessions impacted due to public holidays, school closure days and pupil-free days. Guidelines were provided to the school and their student management systems provider to keep methodology consistent for all Western Australian schools.
• The number of unavailable sessions were converted to hours based on the average duration of each session at the school attended. Operationally unavailable hours are reported in the relevant column but have not been added to attended hours for the reference period.

Deviation from the NPAC standards

• Child's SA1 and Mesh Block of Residence: For children for whom a valid address was not provided, the child’s SA1 and Mesh Block information were imputed using the service provider address.
• Preschool Program Provider ID/Name: Data is reported at the school level. It is not possible to report separate/multiple service delivery locations as campuses of the main school.
• Child's Preschool Program Start Date/End Date: In instances where a child is enrolled at a service provider, un-enrols and re-enrols within the reference period then the initial enrolment episode and re-enrolment episode have not been reported separately. The two enrolment episodes are combined with the Preschool Program Start Date as the start date for the first enrolment period and the Preschool Program End Date as not applicable if the enrolment is continuing. This deviation is limited to public schools only and is known to impact fewer than 10 students in total.
• Operationally Unavailable Hours: Operationally unavailable hours include days where the school was closed for religious holidays or funeral in a remote community during the reference period.

Interpretability

For all schools, the collection instrument contained significant guidance and computation rules to prevent inconsistent responses.

Accessibility 

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information contained within this report has been provided by WA DoE in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available on the WA DoE website.

Institutional Environment

The organisation responsible for the Tasmanian NPAC Data Collection is the Tas. DECYP. The data is collected under the Education Act 2016 (Tas.).

Relevance

Data is collected by the Tas. DECYP and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators.

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Tasmania submission and is provided by the Department. 

URL data collection methodology was employed for children and service providers.

In-scope children

The scope of the preschool education component of the Tasmanian NPAC 2025 submission was all children enrolled in and attending a preschool program in Term 2 (28 April to 4 July inclusive) of their year before full-time schooling (kindergarten in Tasmania) in 2025. The scope of the NPAC is all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) who have attended a preschool program at any time during Term 2. This includes children who were non-permanent residents. 

In-scope services

The Tasmanian NPAC data collection was managed and coordinated by Tas. DECYP in conjunction with the Tasmanian Catholic Education Office and Independent Schools Tasmania to ensure preschool children across all sectors were completely represented.

Timeliness

Data for all government and non-government preschool service providers in Tasmania were extracted in alignment with the ABS NPAC reference period. The Tas. DECYP then compiled, validated and submitted the dataset to the ABS in November 2025.

Reference period

The reference period for Tasmania was Term 2 of the school year, from 28 April to 4 July 2025. Data for the government, Catholic and independent sectors were collected for this reference period. 

Accuracy

Tas. DECYP compiled the data provided by the government, independent, and Catholic school sectors via a custom-built web-based tool originally designed for the NECECC. Extensive enhanced functionality was integrated into the existing web-based tool to accommodate the expanded scope required for the NPAC collection for 2025. 

Data was collected from the three sectors as follows:

• Government sector: data was extracted from government schools’ student enrolment and attendance management platform and loaded directly into the web-based tool.
• Catholic sector: data was collected centrally by the Catholic education sector and submitted to Tas. DECYP. This data was then uploaded into the web-based tool.
• Independent sector: student, timetable and attendance data was manually entered by staff into a custom built excel template and uploaded into the web-based tool.

Government service providers uploaded information from each child enrolment form into the Tas. DECYP student management system 'EduPoint' which stored the information in a data warehouse. The data warehouse contains in-built data quality checks that provide timely data feedback to schools. Data from the warehouse was then used to populate the Tasmanian NPAC submission. 

The Catholic education sector collected data centrally with their equivalent student management system as 'Edupoint'. The data was validated via their internal process before being sent to Tas. DECYP, who conducted further validation before uploading into the web base tool. 

All student information was exchanged between sectors via secure Microsoft Teams environments applying encryption and access-control restrictions to ensure confidentiality and authorised use only. Indigenous students are identified at enrolment in Tasmanian government schools using the national Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) schools’ enrolment question: "Is the student of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin?" The responses available are: No; Yes, Aboriginal; Yes, Torres Strait Islander; or Yes, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. If a student or family doesn't answer the question, then the response is 'Not Stated'.

For non-government schools, the same question is asked, with available responses from the non-government Kinder enrolment system: Aboriginal but not Torres Strait Islander origin; Torres Strait Islander but not Aboriginal origin; Both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin; Neither Aboriginal nor Torres Strait Islander origin; and not stated/inadequately described. If there is no response, it is coded as 'Not Stated'.

Response rates

The response rate of all in-scope services that provided kindergarten data to the Tas. DECYP was 100%.

Data quality management

The data of government and non-government service providers were reviewed and cleaned by Tas. DECYP staff. This process included numerous system quality checks such as confirming student ages, hours enrolled, and verifying duplicate enrolments across schools. 

Extensive quality assurance occurred for the attendance data, to ensure that data was consistent with other Tas. DECYP data sources, Catholic sector and independent data sources. Specific validation methods applied in the data collection application and by Tas. DECYP included:

• data code compliance with the NPAC standards
• detection of inconsistent data coding, e.g. students with dates of birth outside expected date ranges, indicating coding errors
• comparisons of student demographic information, enrolment counts and attendance hours with previous year data
• review of school summary tables by student data by various categories, i.e. Indigenous status, enrolment hours
• students in repeat years of preschool

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Hours Attended during the Reference Period were calculated using school start and end times for each day of the childcare class, and days the class ran through the week, divided by the number of weeks in the reference period (10 weeks) to produce an average number of attendance hours per week during the reference period.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

Operationally unavailable hours were calculated as time when the service was closed (e.g., public holidays or student-free days). Where a child was scheduled to attend on these days, these hours were recorded as operationally unavailable rather than as non-attendance.

Deviation from the NPAC standards

Hours attended during the reference period: Hours of attendance were derived from the kinder class times. Attendance was recorded per student per class.

Interpretability

An instructional guide was supplied to assist custodians with collecting and providing data for Tasmania’s NPAC submission. 

Accessibility 

Government student Kinder numbers are published in the Tas. DECYP annual report. De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information contained within this report has been sourced from Tas. DECYP in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available at the Tas. DECYP website or email kinder@decyp.tas.gov.au.

Institutional Environment

The organisation responsible for the Northern Territory NPAC 2025 data collection is the Northern Territory Department of Education and Training (NT DET). Data was collected under the Education Act (NT) 2016. The Northern Territory Department of Corporate and Digital Development compiled the data from two sources on behalf of the NT DET:

1. Student Administration and Management System (SAMS) for government schools.
2. Collaborative Online Data Exchange (CODEX) tool for non-government, non-childcare subsidy (CCS) preschools.

Relevance

Data is collected by the NT DET and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators.  

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and is reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Northern Territory submission and is provided by the Department.

URL data collection methodology was employed for children and service providers.

In-scope children

The scope of the Northern Territory NPAC is all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive as at 1 July 2025) who were enrolled in and attended a non-CCS registered government or non-government preschool program for at least one hour during the ten-week Term 2 reference period from to 14 April to 20 June (inclusive). This includes children who were non-permanent residents.

In the Northern Territory, children are eligible to enrol in preschool at the beginning of the year if they turn 4 years of age on or prior to 30 June of the same year. If a Northern Territory child turns 4 years of age after 30 June, they can enrol in preschool on or after their 4th birthday. Children in very remote schools may be enrolled in a preschool program from when they turn 3 years of age. 

In addition, the NT DET approved the delivery of a 3-year-old preschool program at four government preschools across the Northern Territory in 2024, as part of a trial to identify and respond to children with additional needs earlier and provide a strong start to full-time schooling. This program was discontinued at the end of 2024. As a result, the ‘preschool program enrolment in a preschool program code’ was reported as not stated/inadequately described for the children in the two years before full time schooling (2YBFS) cohort in 2025. In 2024, this was reported as enrolled in a preschool program designed or intended for children in the year that is two years before full time school.

In-scope services

Data collection methodology and sources differed between government and non-government preschools, however the data collected was at the same level of detail and are comparable across the two sectors.

CBDC providers that deliver preschool programs were not in scope for the NT submission.

Timeliness

Data was collected over the reference period and extracted on 7 November 2025. The NT DET compiled, processed and validated the data before submitting it to the ABS in November 2025.

Reference period

Not all Northern Territory preschools operate with the same term dates. The Term 2 reference period for all but five schools was 14 April to 20 June. Four of the five schools were non- government schools. Their reference periods are listed below:

• 15 April to 19 June
• 15 April to 20 June
• 22 April to 20 June

One remote government school operates on different school terms and the reference period for this school was 7 April to 20 June.

Data from the reference period is extrapolated by the ABS to the entire year for calculation of attendance performance and subsequent analysis.

Accuracy

All enrolment and attendance data for government schools including for preschool year levels was captured in the SAMS. There are eight separate collections of enrolment and attendance data throughout the school year, with collections three and four relevant to the Term 2 NPAC data collection period. The data collections are used to inform various internal and external reporting requirements including the NPAC. 

As part of the standard enrolment and attendance data validation process of government schools, school principals were required to check the data, edit if necessary, and confirm accuracy. Business rules guided the processing of data. The enrolment and attendance data validation process required formal sign-off from school principals, stating it was a true and accurate representation of their school for each enrolment and attendance period. This ensured the quality and validity of the data being provided. Internal validation of the early childhood data was subsequently undertaken. 

Non-government schools provided child and service provider record level attendance information via the CODEX tool specifically for the NPAC. The data supplied was validated by the principal or delegate.

All data was processed centrally for inclusion in the NPAC.

It should be noted that attendance patterns for the Northern Territory demonstrate a relatively large number of students with multiple enrolments. This is partially due to the high mobility of remote and very remote populations.

Data quality management

Detailed validation processes used by NT DET in 2025 were as follows: 

• school validation: as above, all government schools were provided with data reports as part of the standard enrolment and attendance data validation process and were required to confirm the information was correct. Schools were required to carry out validation reporting to maintain data quality, targeting such areas as child Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, gender and age. Non-government schools were able to generate detailed reports from CODEX for review before they validated their preschool data.
• system validation: the validation process included historical comparison against NECECC data and cross checking of data against national reporting rules

Student Indigenous status is identified through the enrolment form. Government schools use the following question:

Question: Is the student of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin?

Response: 

• No
• Yes, Aboriginal
• Yes, Torres Strait Islander
• Yes, both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

Where no answer is recorded, schools are asked to follow up with the parent/guardian to confirm the Indigenous status of the child. This is done throughout the year and forms part of the validation process for Enrolment and Attendance collections. Students without a valid Indigenous status are flagged in validation reports. If the parent/guardian does not wish to disclose the Indigenous status, it is recorded as ‘Not Stated’.

Non-government schools are not required to use the same enrolment form as government schools so the wording may vary slightly. 

Child information (gender/sex, Indigenous status, address or date of birth) were reported against the last known attribute at the time of data extraction. It is unlikely data will be updated, unless incorrect. Where a child had an invalid address, the school address was reported.

Prior to Term 2, 2025, NT DET reviewed 2025 preschool enrolment and attendance in the Northern Territory non-government sector to identify all in-scope preschool programs. No additional non-government schools were identified in this collection as having preschool enrolments.

Coherence

An analysis of the coherence of this collection with other jurisdictional collections should be undertaken on an individual basis, with consideration of any data elements that are not consistent with the NPAC standards. 

An irregularity in the derivation of Statistical Linkage Keys by the NT DET was found in surnames with spaces in the first 5 characters. In consultation with the ABS, these were rectified for this submission, resulting in the correction of 37 records in 2025. 

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Preschool attendance is recorded at session level, with a maximum of two sessions per day. Preschool in government schools are set at three hours per session and thus hours attended was calculated by multiplying the number of sessions attended during the period by three hours.

Non-government schools used similar methodology, but with session hours specific to each school.

A small number of schools in the NT are known to offer less than 600 hours of preschool each year to their YBFS cohort.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

For government schools, operationally unavailable hours were estimated at school level, based on dates that the school was closed due to various reasons including public holidays and school closures irrespective of whether the student was timetabled to attend. This approach is used due to the varied delivery of preschool in government schools. The number of hours of preschool normally available per day is summed e.g. if there are two sessions of preschool available on that day and each session normally lasts 3 hours, then 6 hours per unavailable day is recorded. Some non-government schools used an equivalent measure, whilst some schools calculated unavailable hours based on each student’s individual daily timetable.

Deviations from the NPAC standard

For the Northern Territory there were no deviations from the NPAC standard.

Comparisons to other jurisdictional collections

The Northern Territory government publishes government school attendance rates by Year level, including for preschool, measured as the proportion of student sessions attended, compared to the sessions they are expected to attend during the reporting period, by term and year on the NT DET website. Whilst the methodology is not identical, trends should broadly align.

Interpretability

In 2024 and 2025, the NT DET provided a range of support and information to Northern Territory non-government preschools to assist in the collection and reporting of data, such as meetings, training sessions, manuals and ‘how to’ guides, to support correct interpretation and definition of concepts. Detailed reports and instructional papers on the requirements, processes and rules for submitting data through the Non-Government Age/Grade Census were provided to service providers to assist with data provision.

Accessibility 

De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information source

The information contained within this report has been provided by the NT DET in consultation with the ABS. Further information is available at the NT DET website.

Institutional Environment

The Australian Capital Territory Education Directorate (the Directorate) was responsible for the submission of public sector school data for the 2025 NPAC. This data was sourced from:

• ACT public school student administration system
• ACT Student movement register.

The ACT public school data used in the NPAC is collected under the Education Act 2004 (ACT).

Relevance

Data is collected by the Directorate and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators.

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and are reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. 

Data for CCS-funded CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Directorate's submission and is provided by the Australian Government Department of Education.

URL data collection methodology was employed for children and schools.

In-scope children

In 2025, the Directorate’s submission includes all children aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) enrolled in a preschool program who had at least one hour of attendance during the ten-week Term 2 reference period from 28 April to 4 July (inclusive). This includes children who were non-permanent residents.

In-scope services

A preschool program is in-scope if it was providing a structured, play based learning program, delivered by a qualified teacher, aimed at children in the year or two before they commence full-time schooling (a preschool program) during the reference period. These criteria apply irrespective of the type of institution that provides the program or whether it is government funded or privately provided.

Timeliness

Australian Capital Territory public school data extraction dates are provided below.

• Student addresses for students in August Census (data as at 1 August 2025) were extracted on 3 August 2025.
• Student addresses for students not in August Census were extracted on 9 September 2025.
• Student enrolment records and student attributes for students who were enrolled in Term 2 were extracted on 19 August 2025.
• Student start and exit dates for students who were enrolled in Term 2 were extracted on 19 August 2025.
• Attendance records for students who were enrolled in Term 2 were extracted on 28 July 2025.

Reference period

The reference period for the Australian Capital Territory public school sector is Term 2, from Monday 28 April 2025 to Friday 4 July 2025. 

Accuracy

The Australian Capital Territory public school data used in the NPAC is collected as set out in the Education Act 2004 (ACT) to enable the Directorate to effectively manage enrolment and attendance in Australian Capital Territory public schools.

The data represents a ‘snapshot’ at the time of extraction and may not include retrospective updates.

Response rates

All eligible Australian Capital Territory public preschools provided data for the NPAC.

Data quality management

The quality of Australian Capital Territory public school data is managed by undertaking significant and detailed checking and validation of student and school details. 

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Hours Attended during the Reference Period were derived by identifying the total possible hours of attendance and the total number of hours of whole day absences for each provider and for each student. Any absences recorded outside the timetabled classes or recorded on operationally unavailable days were excluded from calculations.

Attendance per student per provider is calculated by subtracting absence hours from total possible hours.

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

Operationally Unavailable Hours for each student were calculated by identifying the number of hours of public holidays and student-free days that fell on a student’s scheduled class day. 

Deviation from the NPAC standards

For Australian Capital Territory public schools there were no deviations from the NPAC standards.

Interpretability 

Australian Capital Territory public preschools were notified of data collection requirements via standard internal communications. A new flexible enrolment module was added to the school administration system to support accurate recording of preschool attendance. 

In late April 2025, the Australian Capital Territory changed the wording of the enrolment form question about students’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status. Consequently, some students included in the 2025 NPAC may have their responses recorded using the updated question, while others, particularly those already enrolled before the change, retained information collected under the previous wording. Fewer than 1% of students in the NPAC are estimated to be impacted by this change.

Accessibility 

Privacy and confidentiality requirements within Family Assistance Law limit the publication of childcare administrative data at certain granularities. De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information Source

Information was provided by the ACT Education Directorate. Further details are available from the Directorate website.

Institutional Environment

The Directorate was responsible for submitting non‑government (independent) school data for the 2025 NPAC on behalf of schools that do not use the CCSS.

The data was sourced from:

•  Australian Capital Territory non-government school administration systems.

The Australian Capital Territory non-government school data used in the NPAC is collected under the Education Act 2004 (ACT).

Relevance

Data is collected by the Directorate and supplied to the ABS for the purpose of producing high-quality preschool attendance estimates for use by the Australian Government Department of Education in the calculation of PRA performance indicators. 

Data is provided against the 2025 NPAC NMDS and are reported at the episode level for each enrolment of an in-scope child within the reference period. An episode refers to a child’s enrolment at a specific service provider. A child enrolled at multiple services will have at least one episode per service. A child may have multiple episodes per service where they have multiple enrolments with distinct start and end dates. Data for CBDC services is out-of-scope for the Directorate's submission and is provided by the Australian Government Department of Education.

URL data collection methodology was employed for children and service providers.

In-scope children

Children in-scope for the Australian Capital Territory’s NPAC 2025 submission were aged 3 to 6 years (inclusive) on 30 April in the collection year and were enrolled in a preschool program in the year before full-time school at a non-government school in the Australian Capital Territory during the reference period. This includes children who were non-permanent residents.

To be considered enrolled, the child must have attended the preschool program during the reference period.

In-scope services

A preschool program is in-scope if it was providing a structured, play based learning program, delivered by a qualified teacher, aimed at children in the year or two before they commence full-time schooling (a preschool program) during the reference period. These criteria apply irrespective of the type of institution that provides the program or whether it is government funded or privately provided.

Timeliness

The non-government school data was requested as detailed below: 

• schools were sent information about the collection on 27 June 2025
• schools were sent the data collection template (provided by ABS) on 15 July 2025
• schools returned the completed template between 25 and 29 July 2025

Reference period

The reference period for the Australian Capital Territory non-government school sector is Term 2, from Monday 28 April 2025 to Friday 4 July 2025, noting that some schools finished earlier than this.

Accuracy

The Directorate validated the 2025 data from each participating non-government school. The data represents a ‘snapshot’ at the time of extraction and may not include retrospective updates.

Response rates

All Australian Capital Territory non-government preschools who did not use the CCSS provided data for NPAC to the Directorate.

Data quality management

The quality of Australian Capital Territory non-government school data was managed by undertaking significant and detailed checking and validation of student and school details. 

Coherence

Calculation of Hours Attended during the Reference Period

Hours Attended during the Reference Period were derived from the length of a session for each child reported as attending, not arrival and departure times. For this count, actual session hours were reported (e.g. duration calculated from session start and end time). 

Calculation of Operationally Unavailable Hours

Operationally Unavailable Hours for each student were calculated by identifying the number of hours of public holidays and student-free days that fell on a student’s scheduled class day.

Deviation from the NPAC standards

The Australian Capital Territory state specific age cut-off date is 30 April. Most students in the YBFS were 4 years old as of 30 April of the reference year. 

Non-government schools were advised that “a child is recorded as having attended an early childhood education program if they were present for at least one hour during the reference period.” Fewer than 1% of children fall into this category of having attended for less than an hour. It is unclear whether children who attended for less than one hour were excluded from the collection entirely or were included with an attendance value of zero.

Interpretability 

The Directorate liaised with each participating non-government school to collect data and verify details.

Accessibility 

Privacy and confidentiality requirements within Family Assistance Law limit the publication of childcare administrative data at certain granularities. De-identified aggregate data (which includes childcare administrative data) is published as part of Preschool Attendance on the ABS website.

Confidentialised microdata will be made available via ABS DataLab to the Australian Government Department of Education, and state and territory education departments, subject to approval.

Information Source

Information was collected directly from non-government schools via a secure file transfer system. Further details are available from the Directorate website.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

Children are included in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counts if they are identified by a parent or guardian as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. For further details, see the jurisdictional data quality statements.

Attendance

For the purposes of this publication, a child is defined as attending a preschool program if the child was enrolled and present for at least one hour during the reference period. Children who did not attend a preschool program during the reference period (e.g. children who were absent due to illness or extended holiday leave) are defined as not attending a preschool program.

Child-specific year before full-time schooling

A child is defined as being in the CSYBFS if, according to state rules, their birth date means they are:

• Eligible for preschool, and it is the year before they become eligible for school, or
• Eligible for preschool or school, and school is compulsory the following year, and they were not identified as a YBFS repeater.

Disadvantaged children

Children are included in the disadvantaged children counts if their address places them in the most disadvantaged quintile (quintile 1) of the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD). If child address is not known, service address is used.

Episode

For the NPAC, an episode is a single occurrence of a child enrolled in and/or attending a preschool program. When a child attends two different preschool programs, this is described as a child having two attendance episodes.

Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD)

The IRSD used in this release was developed by the ABS and ranks areas in Australia according to most disadvantaged to least disadvantaged using variables from the 2021 Census. A low score on this index indicates a high proportion of relatively disadvantaged people in an area. It cannot be concluded that an area with a very high score has a large proportion of relatively advantaged people, as there are no variables in the index to indicate this.

Operationally unavailable hours

Operationally unavailable hours are those hours within the attendance reference period where the service provider was not available for the children to attend due to safety (a risk to attendees at the service provider or in relation to access to the location), planning and pupil-free days, or public holidays.

Preschool program

A preschool program is a structured, play-based learning program, delivered by a degree qualified teacher, aimed at children in the year or two before they commence full-time schooling. This is irrespective of the type of institution that provides it or whether it is government funded and/or privately provided. Preschool programs are often referred to by other terms such as early childhood education, early learning or kindergarten.

Service type

Service type is a classification derived from the service activity type characteristics of service providers.

Service activity type

The service activity type is the main type of service available from, or provided by, a service provider. Service activity types include:

• Centre Based Day Care (CBDC): A centre based day care service is a centre  based form of child care service providing all-day or part-time care for children (services may cater to specific groups within the general community). For-profit and not-for profit organisations, local councils, community organisations and employers may run these services. CBDC primarily provides services for children aged 0-5 years. Some CBDCs may also provide early childhood education and kindergarten programs and care for school children before and after school and during school holidays, where state and territory government regulations allow this. The service may operate from stand-alone or shared premises, including those on school grounds.
• Early childhood education program: Comprises services providing a structured, play-based learning program, aimed at children in the year or two before they commence full-time schooling. The terms most commonly used to describe early education programs which are subject to the Universal Access to Early Childhood Education National Partnerships (UANP) in states and territories are:
  • kindergarten – Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania
  • kindergarten or preschool – Victoria, South Australia
  • preschool – New South Wales, Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory

Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA)

SEIFA is a collection of four summary measures that have been created from 2021 Census information. The indexes can be used to explore different aspects of socio-economic conditions by geographic areas. The SEIFA index used in this publication is the IRSD.

For each index, every geographic area in Australia is given a SEIFA number which shows how disadvantaged that area is compared with other areas in Australia. Quintiles are calculated by ordering the scores for all areas from lowest to highest, with the lowest 20% of areas given a quintile number of 1 and so on, up to the highest 20% of areas which are given a quintile number of 5. The indexes provide more general measures of socio-economic status than is given by measuring, for example, income or unemployment alone. 

For more information on SEIFA, refer to the Methodology section of Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia, 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Unit record level data collection

Unit record level data collections contain data for each individual statistical entity in a collection population.