Navigating Policy Disconnect in Early Childhood: Teams Interpreting the NQF,EYLF,and Modern Awards

Abstract

In Australia, early childhood education and care (ECEC) has experienced substantial policy reform in the past 15 years with major shifts in qualification requirements, a national prescribed curriculum, and increasing focus on quality. Teams of early childhood educators are expected to collaboratively navigate these reforms while making decisions that lead to quality. This paper draws on a PhD study that examined how teams of educators in ECEC make curricular and pedagogical decisions within a complex policy landscape. Three key national policy documents that govern educators’ work—Guide to the National Quality Framework (NQF), Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and modern awards—were closely analysed to make visible the complexities of how team decision-making is conceptualised in policy. Findings contribute to the global political attention on ECEC and offers ways forward for educators, organisations, and governments to re-align the reform strategy and strengthen policy implementation, leading to quality outcomes for children.

Introduction

Over the past 15 years the Australian ECEC policy landscape has experienced considerable transformation, shaped by emerging political priorities and a growing body of research (Council of Australian Governments (COAG), 2009; Early Childhood Development Steering Committee, 2009; Heckman et al., 2013; Logan et al., 2013; Phillipson et al., 2018; Sumsion, 2006). These significant political shifts can be traced back to the early 21^st century, driven by influential findings highlighting the importance of quality (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2006, 2015), the benefits of ECEC in enhancing children’s learning, wellbeing, and development (Berk, 2009; Melhuish, 2016), the addressing of disadvantage (Tayler, 2016), and the positive economic and social returns for ECEC investment (Australian Government, 2011; Grudnoff, 2022). Calls for regulation, universal offerings, and government investment rapidly followed (OECD, 2006), stimulating a wave of ECEC policy reform. This saw an increase on government expenditure on ECEC, sparking a focus on regulation, standardisation, and monitoring systems (Australian Government, 2011). A commitment to ongoing continuous quality improvement in early childhood settings (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), 2024) addressed accountability for public investment.

The Early Years Reform Agenda (EYRA) marked the beginning of significant change to the early childhood sector: new structural arrangements, quality measures, curriculum, and qualification requirements (Early Childhood Development Steering Committee, 2009). The centrepiece of the EYRA was the NQF, introduced in 2012 as an agreement between the Australian Government and all Australian states and territories. The NQF created a national shared vision for consistent quality standards, with ECEC settings expected to adapt to significant changes and meet staggered milestones spanning a decade. The nature of early childhood work shifted to a stronger focus on better educational outcomes for children. The NQF embodied a commitment to increased quality and continuous improvement through an assessment and rating system, consistency of education and care services with a regulatory structure, and a national learning framework—the EYLF. Along with family day care, preschool/kindergarten, and outside school hours care, the implementation of the NQF required long day care services to comply with prescriptive legislation—Education and Care Services National Regulations (2011); Education and Care Services National Law Act, 2010—and the performance-based National Quality Standard (NQS), which can be met in various ways. Teams in ECEC grapple with this changing regulatory landscape (Armstrong, 2023; Harrison et al., 2023; Phillips & Boyd, 2023) as they are expected to navigate these reforms collaboratively amidst a workforce saturated with challenges of attracting, retaining, and upskilling educators (Commonwealth of Australia, 2024; Education Services Australia, 2021; Queensland Government, 2023).

Australian ECEC Workforce Context

The Australian ECEC workforce is charged with interpreting and enacting policy through collaborative team decision-making. Teams in ECEC are diverse, with qualification requirements spanning certificate III to degree. The majority of the ECEC workforce are employed in long day care with 67.7% of all educators (Jobs and Skills Australia, 2024). Teams in long day care services are unique with educators holding various qualifications, position titles, and responsibilities, and an overarching goal to collaboratively produce quality ECEC programs (Heikka et al., 2021; Phillips & Boyd, 2023; Waniganayake et al., 2023). Long day care settings are described as services that operate for a minimum of 8-h per weekday, catering for children aged birth to school age (Starting Blocks, 2025) and represent over 52% of ECEC services (ACECQA, 2025). As the average long day care centre is licenced to provide education and care for 80 children per day (Meulman et al., 2018), most teams consist of a nominated supervisor, educational leader, two degree-qualified teachers, and multiple diploma- and certificate III-qualified educators. ECEC services are responsible for fostering a clear understanding of the staffing structure, roles, and responsibilities for teams of educators, specific to each context (ACECQA, 2024), though there are numerous possibilities in how staffing in long day care can be structured (Jackson, 2021; Waniganayake et al., 2023).

Unlike school contexts where all teachers are required to hold a minimum four-year degree, introduction of a qualified teacher into long day care created a hierarchy of roles, with teams required to work harmoniously (ACECQA, 2024). Modern awards—documents that set out the minimum industrial standards of employment under the Australian Fair Work Fair WJork Act, 2009, including pay, indicative duties, and responsibilities—are relied upon to guide remuneration of the ECEC workforce. The awards outline conditions for educators and teachers depending on their qualifications, and contribute to a lowly recognised workforce with over half of all paid staff receiving minimum wages (Australian Government, 2024). Whilst modern awards offer some scope of the work required for an educator to be paid a relevant wage, the NQF permits flexibility to services in how work is distributed within teams. The legislated requirement to increase educator qualifications was introduced to uplift quality (Melhuish, 2016), however, little is known about how roles and responsibilities are interpreted, in practice, to enable diversely qualified teams to make quality decisions. Challenges persist as ways of working in ECEC teams continues to be debated (Cohrssen et al., 2023).

Leadership and Teamwork in Early Childhood

Leadership and teamwork are identified as a significant component of quality ECEC. Leadership roles are positively associated with quality of care and education, and children’s developmental outcomes (Waniganayake et al., 2023). Distributed leadership theories also generate new understandings about the nature of team decision-making in ECEC, with international scholars identifying it is the shared approach to making decisions in early childhood teams that leads to quality (Heikka et al., 2021; Kangas et al., 2016). However, ambiguous job descriptions and varying levels of expertise make it challenging to know what, when, and how much decision-making to delegate and share (Hard & Jonsdottir, 2013). As ECEC teams navigate policy, there are certain instances where legislation defers responsibility to a particular position/person, contradicting shared decision-making expectations (ACECQA, 2024; Halttunen, 2016). This highlights a discourse of authority as teams traverse the political nuances of what is a collective responsibility and therefore a shared decision, opposed to an individual responsibility defined by law (Halttunen, 2016). This has led to calls for clarity in processes for ECEC shared decision-making.

The work of educators in ECEC is considerably governed by policy (Logan et al., 2013; Penn, 2011) with an explicit focus in Australia on leadership and working collaboratively in teams (ACECQA, 2024; AGDE, 2022). The 2018 ACECQA-commissioned Quality Improvement Research Project (Harrison et al., 2019) informed a review of the EYLF and highlighted the importance of strong, effective, and collaborative leadership, recognising teamwork as a critical factor in quality. This led to the EYLF V2.0 introducing a new principle—Collaborative Leadership and Teamwork. This is also reflected in the introduction of the educational leader role, which emerged from the NQF in 2012 in response to research attributing effective pedagogical leadership with quality ECEC programs (Hard & Jonsdottir, 2013; Irvine et al., 2018; Nuttall et al., 2024). The educational leader role reflected similar approaches internationally. However, studies have shown that the enactment of the educational leader role can be hindered by inadequate support, lack of associated budget, and an absence of industrial recognition (Fleet et al., 2015; Nuttall et al., 2024). The 10-year National Children’s Education and Care Workforce Strategy 2022-2031 (Education Services Australia, 2021) strives to mitigate these barriers to leadership and teamwork by focusing on professional recognition, increasing qualification pathways, and attraction and retention. Little is known about the complex nature of teams in ECEC and how policies are interpreted and enacted by leaders and teams in long day care.

Research Approach

This paper draws on findings from a broader PhD research study involving policy documents and data collected from four Queensland long day care centres, guided by the research question: How do teams of early childhood educators make curricular and pedagogical decisions in long day care?

The aim of the study is to generate new understandings of points of connection and disconnection between key ECEC policies at a critical juncture in the Australian policy climate. It is now over a decade since the EYRA was implemented and teams of educators have continued to navigate, interpret, and enact policy documents. Yet there is limited empirical evidence on how varying policies are presented to enable early childhood team decision-making within policy intent. The data for the study comprised three phases to form a textual archive: policy documents, centre documents, and focus group transcripts. This paper presents key findings from the first phase of data analysis with a focus on the points of connection and disconnection between three policy documents: the Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and modern awards. An interrogation of these policies scrutinises expectations for teams of educators, whose practice needs to align with requirements across all documents. Future publications will build on this analysis by investigating how four centres enact these policies through individual centre documents and how educators articulate team decision-making within the context of policies and centre documents.

This qualitative study draws on Foucault’s (1972) archaeological concepts to locate discourses—unfixed in nature and capable of constructing and shaping reality—to critique policy. It is through this lens that voices of authority are produced—who is privileged to speak, at what time, and how (Ball, 1994). The analysis of policies makes visible the dominant and taken for granted ways teams of educators are constructed through discourses, which regulate the ways teams are enabled to make decisions. Identified circulating and competing policy discourses show how the voices of educators in teams are distributed, accepted, and silenced (Ball, 1994).

Policies as Data

Three national policy documents relevant to ECEC teams were collected as data for phase one of the study: the Guide to NQF, the EYLF, and the modern awards. Each document offers different views of how educators are expected to work.

The Guide to the NQF

The Guide to the NQF offers an informative and comprehensive reference document for providers and educators from all services across Australian states and territories to inform translation of legislative responsibilities. The document was published by the National Body ACECQA and supports services’ understanding and compliance with the legislation, standards, and frameworks required under the NQF, including the Education and Care Services National Law Act, (2010), Education and Care Services National Regulations (2011) and the NQS. All sections of this document were analysed for the study.

The EYLF

The EYLF is an approved learning framework and mandatory for use in long day care centres under the Education and Care Services National Law Act, (2010). The document is published by the Australian Government and overseen by the Regulatory Authority as educators heavily engage with the EYLF to inform their decision-making and practice. Published in 2009, the EYLF later underwent a review and was relaunched in 2023 as the EYLF V2.0 (AGDE, 2022)—referred to in the analysis of this study as the EYLF.

The Modern Awards

Modern awards, whilst not an ECEC-specific legislative requirement, embody documents that set out the minimum industrial conditions and standards of employment under the Australian Fair Work Fair WJork Act, 2009, including pay, indicative duties, and responsibilities. The Australian Government Fair Work Ombudsman governs the oversight of modern award implementation. The two modern awards selected for analysis are the Children’s Services Award, (2010) and Educational Services (Teachers) Award (2020). The former covers educators from unqualified to advanced diploma, and the latter is reserved for degree-qualified teachers. For the purposes of this study, the modern awards are considered as policies in the sense that they operate as guidelines and rules for decision-making. Current advocacy for multi-employer bargaining and examination of gender undervaluation in modern awards is also notably underway (Australian Government, 2024). It is important to interrogate how the current modern awards interact with the legislative requirements of the Guide to the NQF and the EYLF as they simultaneously govern the ways educators work together, which can inform the upcoming industrial changes to the sector.

Data Analysis

This study adopted a discourse analysis method drawing on Foucault’s concepts of discourse (1972) and relations of power (1990; 1991). The approach to analysing points of connection and disconnection in policy documents regarding teams of educators’ decision-making was sequential and iterative, inspired by Kendall and Wickham’s (1999) seven tasks of Foucault’s archaeological research. This involved reading and re-reading policy documents to analyse the function of language in producing statements and discursive practices, which sets the scene for team decision-making. First, policy documents were individually scoped for statements considered for irregularity, frequency, and contradictions. These statements were then analysed for the rules in circulation, repeatability, and voices of authority to create discursive possibilities. Findings across all three policy documents were then scrutinised to locate points of connection or disconnection.

Conceptualising Discourse

In this study discourses are viewed as unfixed; discourses shift and compete at various points in time and context to make visible the “unwritten rules and structures” (Mills, 2003, p. 53) in operation. The identification of discourses creates understandings of how teams are expected to make decisions as conceptualised in policy documents. It is through discursive analysis that competing contradictions and varied understandings of the right way to engage in decision-making are made visible. This enabled an exploration of the relations of power in operation to reflect on the political strength of policy documents. In this paper, discourses illustrate the ways discursive rules are made available to teams of educators through policy documents.

Conceptualising Relations of Power

Unique to Foucault’s (1972; 1990; 1991) ideas on discourse is the view that discourses are productive—they generate relations of power that influence the conduct of people. Discourses reflect the complex interplay of relations of power and knowledge, leading to rules that govern what is accepted and circulated as true (Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine, 2017). Mapping power relations makes it possible to identify how discourses govern the conduct of others at different points in time (Gillies, 2013). In the case of this study, policies were analysed to detect the power relations that distributes knowledge and continually shape, enable, and constrain the conduct of educators in team decision-making.

Conceptualising Discursive Possibilities

In this paper discursive possibilities is a term used to open opportunities for “thinking otherwise” (Ball, 1998, p. 81) about team decision-making in the context of policy. Discursive possibilities are presented in this study to make sense of policies using language that is accessible to the reader. The discursive possibilities offer an opportunity to make practical sense of the data analysed, acting as a ‘springboard’ from which different ways of thinking about and doing quality ECEC, within policy intent, can be considered.

Ethics

The qualitative study, inclusive of data generation tools, phases, and four participant long day care centres, followed successful ethical approval from the Queensland University of Technology (approval number 4890). This demonstrated the research strictly followed core values of the National Statement in Ethical Conduct in Human Research (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2014), complying with research merit and integrity, justice, beneficence, and respect.

Findings: Connections and Disconnections of Policies

The interrogation of three key policies—the Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and the modern awards—located discourses that offer points of connection and disconnection in the way teams of educators are expected to work. Discourses make visible the complex landscape that governs team decision-making in ECEC. Findings are organised according to three discourses that were prominent in each of the policy documents:

⁃ Staffing structures

⁃ The degree-qualified teacher

⁃ Professional knowledge

Staffing Structures

The policies selected for analysis guide centres in making decisions around staffing and present a contradictory scene for staffing structures. Approved providers (ECEC service provider with NQF responsibilities for both the operation of the centre and management of all staff) must simultaneously interpret the Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and modern awards to inform their approach to staffing structures, though upon analysis of policies three discursive possibilities were located that work for and against one another (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Approach to staffing Structures in Policy Documents

	Guide to the NQF	EYLF	Modern awards
Approach to early childhood staffing structures	Leadership	Inclusive	Hierarchy
	Prescribed roles intended by policy to lead teams (nominated supervisor, educational leaders), all other roles contextually defined.	All educators must contribute to decision-making (no prescribed roles).	Prescribed roles and responsibilities according to pay structure informed by qualification and experience.

First, the Guide to the NQF was identified as promoting a flexible and collegial approach to staffing structures, with a focus on leadership and the provision of the approved provider, nominated supervisor, and educational leader as the only mandated roles. Once allocated a nominated supervisor and educational leader, the approved provider is required to employ a minimum number of degree-qualified teachers and diploma-qualified educators. There is then latitude for approved providers to contextually appoint the roles for remaining educators in the team provided “roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, and understood, and support effective decision-making and operation of the service” (ACECQA, 2024, p. 325). Roles can be based on an educator’s experience, qualifications, professional knowledge, or something else entirely, and may vary from centre to centre. Other than prescribed leadership roles, approved providers create staffing structures based on their interpretation of the NQF, which then dictates how teams are expected to make decisions.

Second, an emphasis on collaboration was located in the EYLF, where all educators are positioned as equal contributors to decision-making as a “collective professional activity” (ACECQA, 2023, p. 2)—a somewhat inclusive approach to staffing structures. The EYLF positions educators with flexible roles, enabled to evolve with their individual attributes, strengths, and professional knowledge (Phillips & Boyd, 2023). This sees educators engaged in a push-pull of power/knowledge relations (Foucault, 1990, 1991), where in some decision-making instances the educator might act as a leader and others, a follower, regardless of their prescribed role, responsibilities, or qualification. Whilst a shared approach to decision-making is prominent in the EYLF—specifically with one of eight principles underpinning educator practice entitled Collaborative Leadership and Teamwork—when analysed alongside the NQF and modern awards the EYLF blurs the authority of roles associated with leadership (the nominated supervisor and educational leader) and qualification (informed by modern awards levels). A mismatch is located here, where teams of educators are expected—through policies—to traverse when and how to defer to collective responsibility as encouraged by EYLF, or individual responsibility as legislated by law (NQF and modern awards).

Third, at the same time as aligning practices to the EYLF and NQF, approved providers are expected to construct staffing structures that align with the industrial conditions outlined in modern awards (adhering to an approved provider’s legal obligations as employers under Fair Work legislation). This presents a challenge as the NQF and EYLF envisage staffing structures in terms of leadership and teamwork and the modern awards position staffing according to a hierarchy to align qualification levels with pay structures and accountability. The Guide to the NQF, for example, includes the term team 91 times, all educators 45 times and all staff 18 times, suggesting all educators have many similar expectations in relation to their duties and work regardless of role, responsibilities, wage, or qualification (ACECQA, 2024). This contrasts with the modern award where there is no provision of time to collaborate and no mention of the word team. The modern awards are further distinguished from the NQF and EYLF by offering indicative duties according to qualification thus discursively positioning the certificate III-qualified educator below the diploma-qualified educator and degree-qualified teacher. For example, whilst the EYLF encourages a collective approach to decision-making, the modern awards only offer non-contact time to diploma-qualified educators enacting a role responsible for a group of children. This constrains the certificate III-qualified educator as without the time—or wage—to assist and “record observations” (s B.1.4), it is not known whether they remain willing to contribute to the program. The NQF call for a distributed, shared, and collective approach to decision-making (ACECQA, 2024) is not visible in the modern awards. The flexibility for staffing structures outlined in the Guide to the NQF (where all team members are expected to proactively contribute to quality) contrasts with the roles and duties detailed in the modern awards where there is no mention of teamwork. This disconnection between policy documents with contradictory language creates a layer of ambiguity as teams navigate staffing structures and decision-making.

The consistent focus on staff as a homogenous group in the NQF and EYLF demonstrates a privileging of knowledge held by all educators in the provision of ECEC. At the same time, the focus on roles and responsibilities according to qualification level in the modern awards generates a hierarchy of knowledge. Here, modern awards appear to contradict the flexibility offered by the NQF in staffing structures. The effect of this contradiction is the creation of varying discourses around staffing. Staffing structures can be viewed through a lens of collaboration, or the notion that everyone (regardless of role) contributes (following the NQF and EYLF to forge a collaborative and flexible approach to staffing structures). Yet staffing structures are also informed by roles and responsibilities that are defined and ordered according to qualification or role (following the modern awards hierarchical approach to pay structures aligning with qualification).

The Degree-Qualified Teacher

The NQF aimed to lift the quality of ECEC by mandating the introduction of one, and in some contexts two, degree-qualified teachers into centre staffing structures. Analysis of policy documents identified a tension in how the degree-qualified teacher is positioned as an indicator of increased quality. The Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and modern awards discursively produce the degree-qualified teacher in three distinct ways (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Approach to the Degree-qualified Teacher Policy Documents

	Guide to the NQF	EYLF	Modern awards
Approach to the degree-qualified teacher in team decision-making	Team member	Equal participant	An individual
	All teams include at least one degree-qualified teacher, though no prescribed role or responsibilities.	Degree-qualified teachers are equal contributors to team decision-making.	Degree-qualified teachers are responsible for a group of children.

First, the Guide to the NQF positions the degree-qualified teacher as a team member, with no prescribed place within teams. As the degree-qualified teacher only needs to be “physically present at the service” (ACECQA, 2024, p. 681) with indicative responsibilities such as planning programs or mentoring, coaching or supporting educators, their role can be contextually negotiated and enacted differently from centre to centre. The educational leader, for example, who is charged with leading the implementation of quality education programs in teams (ACECQA, 2024), has no minimum qualification requirement. This sees educators that are certificate III- or diploma-qualified able to be prioritised for the role over degree-qualified teachers—even though the educational leader is expected to bring comprehensive knowledge, critical thinking skills, and a commitment to learning—as decided by the approved provider. Research foregrounds leaders as a key enabler for high-quality ECEC programs (Cheeseman & Walker, 2019; Irvine et al., 2018). Yet in the NQF the degree-qualified teacher has no clear purpose in leading this quest for quality ECEC; it is not clear how their qualification contributes to an uplift in quality, in ways that differ from their lower qualified colleagues. In the NQF, the requirement for a degree-qualified teacher in teams generates the discursive rule that higher qualifications lead to an increase in quality ECEC. The NQF however simultaneously disrupts this discursive rule by assigning few defined responsibilities to the degree-qualified teacher.

Second, the EYLF positions the degree-qualified teacher as an equal participant, where all educators, regardless of qualification, are enabled to contribute to decisions for children’s learning. The EYLF draws on distributed leadership research (Heikka et al., 2021) to promote the value of collaboration as teams make decisions. Leadership is viewed here as part of a strategy that “empowers all members of the team to use their professional knowledge and skills in ways that assist everyone to do the best they can for children, families and colleagues in their setting” (AGDE, 2022, p. 19). This collaborative theme is reinforced by the term ‘educators’ used throughout the document to describe all educators, regardless of qualification or role. Use of this inclusive term constructs a discourse that all educators are important and valuable contributors to children’s learning and provides flexibility for teams as they negotiate understandings of the EYLF to make decisions together. There is no direction here in the EYLF whether particular experience, skills, knowledge, or qualifications hold more authority than others, nor how teams with diverse characteristics may work together to create high quality education and care. The discursive rule of ‘everyone contributes’ leaves undefined the value or influence of the degree-qualified teacher in teams.

Third, in contrast to the Guide to the NQF and EYLF, the modern awards position the degree-qualified teacher as an individual, with no clear roles, responsibilities, or distinction to their colleagues without a degree qualification, yet receiving higher remuneration. It is not known, within the scope of the modern awards, what the degree-qualified teacher is expected to bring to team decision-making and how this may differ from educators without a degree qualification. For example, the Educational Services (Teachers) Award (2020) describes a degree-qualified teachers work as being “responsible for the preparation, implementation and/or evaluation of a developmental program for an individual child or group of children” (s A.3.2). The Children’s Services Award, 2010 provides additional description of duties for other qualified educators, though the language in both awards imply a focus on individualistic approaches to decision making in contrast to the team-oriented approach to the NQF and EYLF. It is not clear how the degree-qualified teacher role differs from other qualified educators to afford a higher wage, nor how educators are expected to work together to provide quality education and care for a group of children. Herein lies a mismatch between policy documents. The NQF discursively positions the degree-qualified teacher in relation to teams, with an emphasis on collaboration and teamwork, though the modern awards produce a discourse of the degree-qualified teacher as an individual, one that is supposedly different to other educators as governed by a distinct modern award. This approach further detracts from the intention of the NQF where the uplift in qualification through the introduction of the degree-qualified teacher is positioned as a construct of quality (Australian Government, 2024; Melhuish, 2016; OECD, 2006). Since the degree-qualified teacher’s industrial conditions focus heavily on the work of the individual teacher (rather than their role within teams), it is unclear how they are expected to enhance the quality of the centre, and therefore ECEC sector overall, as intended by the EYRA (COAG, 2009).

Professional Knowledge

The analysis of policies selected for this study saw professional knowledge located as a recurring theme. By looking closely at each policy document it was identified that teams of educators are expected to concurrently work in ways that align with the Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and the modern awards, each presenting a different discursive possibility for professional knowledge in team decision-making (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Approach to Professional Knowledge in Policy Documents

	Guide to the NQF	EYLF	Modern awards
Approach to professional knowledge	Informed by ‘role’	Informed by ‘all’	Informed by ‘duties’
	Professional knowledge as theory (evidence-based, theoretical underpinnings).	Professional knowledge as practice (knowledge of children, families, and context).	Professional knowledge as theory (qualification).
	Professional knowledge as practice (knowledge of children, families, and context).	Professional knowledge as theory (scholarly literature).	Professional knowledge as practice (experience).

First, professional knowledge in the Guide to the NQF was identified as informed by role. The educational leader “leads the development and implementation of the educational program and assessment and planning cycle” (ACECQA, 2024, p. 334) whereby generating a hierarchy of knowledge that determines what can be understood as quality professional knowledge.

Second, the EYLF disrupts a hierarchical approach to professional knowledge by requiring all educators, regardless of role or qualification, to contribute to decision-making. Within the scope of the EYLF, educators must negotiate how professional knowledge—without guidance from the text—is activated as teams make decisions. The EYLF promotes “a sense of shared responsibility and professional accountability for children’s learning, development and wellbeing” (AGDE, 2022, p. 19) where all educators in teams are enabled to contribute their professional knowledge to quality curricular and pedagogical decisions.

Third, and in contrast, the modern awards produce a discursive possibility for professional knowledge as informed by duties. That is, the level classifications in the modern awards are in line with qualification and remuneration. Modern awards offer no explicit statements about professional knowledge, regardless of qualification, wage, or experience. However, language in the modern awards such as “responsible”, “contribute”, “co-ordinate and direct” and “supervise” (s B.1.4-B.1.6) are included in higher levels and assume an advanced level of professional knowledge in line with higher qualifications and increased remuneration. The analysis of modern awards indicates that with increased pay and qualification comes an expectation that educators will offer more professional knowledge to team decisions. The modern awards therefore discursively position professional knowledge as driven by higher levels/duties and qualification held, in contrast with the Guide to the NQF and the EYLF.

This mismatch of policies creates a complex space for teams as they navigate professional knowledge and how—or who—decides what privileged knowledge is to be circulated and accepted.

Possibilities and Opportunities for Early Childhood Policy

The analysis of documents for this study—the Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and the modern awards—presents a disjuncture in Australian ECEC policy where the notion that everyone collaborates (the NQS and EYLF), sits in tension with prescribed roles, responsibilities, and wage levels (modern awards). The findings presented in this article disrupt the taken for granted assumption that policies interact consistently with one another by identifying contradictions between policy documents. This disconnect provides a complex space for teams of educators to understand, and implement, quality early education.

Phase one of this study spotlights possibilities for early childhood policy by probing a revisit to the cluster of policies that govern educators’ work and calling for synergy between the Guide to the NQF, EYLF, and modern awards. Doing so would illuminate opportunities to clarify approaches to staffing structures, the degree-qualified teacher, and professional knowledge to recognise policy intentions for uplifting quality in ECEC. Further research into how policies enable and constrain roles and responsibilities in teams would go some way to identify how the ECEC sector translates policy documents into practice, and how this interacts with policy—and research—intent. Policymakers are called upon to align policy documents—encompassing both early childhood policies and industrial standards—to work in unity and therefore better enable early childhood teams to translate policy into quality practice.

Conclusion

This article reported findings from phase one of a PhD study by looking closely at a selection of Australian ECEC policy texts in long day care: the Guide to the NQF, the EYLF, and the modern awards. The interrogation of these texts makes visible discourses that spotlight connections and disconnections between policies as they govern the ways teams of educators make decisions. Staffing structures, the degree-qualified teacher, and professional knowledge were identified as discourses in circulation through each of the three policy texts. At the end of each finding, a table presented the discursive possibilities identified from the policies, visualising the complex landscape that shapes approaches to decision-making in ECEC teams. This is particularly relevant as the Australian ECEC policy landscape continues to call for quality assurance, yet the ways teams of educators interpret and enact policy is not clear. There is a strong need to lay a foundation of interconnected policy documents that guide teams of educators as they make decisions. Future publications will present more findings from phase two and phase three of the PhD study this paper reports on, including analysis of centre-based policy documents and focus group conversations with educators, looking at how teams interpret and enact policy in practice. Combined, these findings will produce a strategic plan to re-align policy reform and improve the ways in which teams of educators make quality decisions for children.