Service and Sector Architectures That Support and Sustain ECEC Workforce Quality

Dear Colleagues,

Governments and providers of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services around the globe are facing a workforce crisis. There is an undersupply of early childhood teachers and educators, and attrition rates post COVID remain high. Policy levers at both sector and service levels are seeking to increase the workforce pipeline, but what initiatives are being put into place to ensure workforce quality?

This Special Issue invites contributions that address policy and leadership approaches intended to support ECEC workforce quality and sustainability. Rather than a focus on specific ECT and educator practices, we are interested in the architectures—sector and service—that support high-quality ECEC. At the sector level, what policy and regulatory approaches are supporting the preparation, development and retention of quality early childhood teachers and vocationally qualified educators? At the service level, how are governance and leadership supporting workforce capability in ways that contribute to service quality and positively impacting children’s development and wellbeing? These issues are timely as we emerge from the COVID pandemic and face increasing neoliberal and marketised approaches to ECEC.

Original research articles and reviews could focus on questions such as:

• How do early childhood initial teacher education programs attract and retain students while ensuring graduate quality?
• How can the regulation of ECEC services assess and support quality in the context of a workforce crisis?
• What ECEC policy and provider initiatives enable workforce supply and quality?
• In the context of significant workforce challenges, who are the leaders of quality ECEC, and are new conceptualisations of leadership needed?
• How do ECE settings, providers and governments enable and constrain leadership and a sustainable workforce?
• What does advocacy leadership look like as the marketisation of ECEC increases? 

Dr. Marianne Fenech
Dr. Leanne Gibbs
Guest Editors

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• early childhood workforce
• early childhood education and care quality
• early childhood policy
• leadership
• governance
• marketisation
• advocacy and activism