Three quarters of education and care services rated Meeting National Quality Standard or above

ACECQA today announced that 93% of all children’s education and care services approved under the National Quality Framework have received a quality rating, with 75% rated at ‘Meeting National Quality Standard’ (NQS) or above (as at 30 September 2017).

“This impressive result reflects the ongoing commitment by children’s education and care services to raising quality standards and striving for continuous improvement in enhancing quality outcomes for children,” said ACECQA CEO Gabrielle Sinclair.

To be rated ‘Meeting NQS’, 58 individual elements of quality must be met by an education and care service. Missing any of these elements results in a rating of ‘Working Towards NQS’. The proportion of services achieving ‘Meeting NQS’ or above has increased each year since the quality rating system began in mid-2012.

Key findings include:

• 93% (14,424) of approved education and care services have a quality rating
• 75% (10,792) of rated services have an overall quality rating of ‘Meeting NQS’ or above
• 40% (1449) of services rated at ‘Working Towards NQS’ do not meet five or fewer of the 58 elements of quality
• 2997 quality rating reassessments have been completed
• Of the 2179 reassessments of services rated ‘Working Towards NQS’, 69% (1502) resulted in a higher overall quality rating.

The findings are published in the NQF Snapshot on the ACECQA website.

From 1 February 2018, a revised version of the NQS will come into effect, which reduces the number of standards from 18 to 15, and the number of elements from 58 to 40. All education and care services will be quality assessed and rated against the revised NQS from 1 February onwards.

Parents and carers are encouraged to visit Starting Blocks  for more information about their local education and care services.

Education and care services approved under the National Quality Framework include long day care, outside school hours care and family day care services, as well as most preschools/kindergartens.