2008 Regulations Amendments

The changes to the licensing criteria came into effect on 28 August 2009. The full licensing criteria can be found in the Service Types section of the ECE Lead website.

The Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 were amended to:

• require early childhood service providers applying to be licensed to pay a fee of $2,756.25 inclusive of GST. The requirement to pay the new fee does not apply to existing early childhood services;
• modify the way in which compliance with minimum staffing requirements of those regulations is determined in relation to mixed-age early childhood education and care centres and hospital- based services; and
• lower the age from 20 to 17 at which a person is counted as an adult for the purposes of the requirements for home-based services.

The minimum staffing required for a mixed-age early childhood education and care centre or hospital-based service is explained in the frequently asked questions on the right hand side, called ‘FAQs Regulation 44A for services licensed under 2008 regulatory system’.

A series of Fact Sheets that provide background on the 2008 regulatory system and changes from the 1998 regulations for each ECE service type (ECE centres, home-based, hospital-based services and playgroups/licence-exempt centres) as well as re-licensing and certification processes, can be downloaded from the box on the right.

FAQs about the changes to the 2008 Regulatory System and some amendments that were made to licensing criteria in July 2009 are also available as downloads on the right.

Playgroups

The Education (Playgroups) Regulations 2008 were amended on 24 August 2009 and came into force on 22 September 2009. This amendment relates to the change to Regulation 19: Ratios Standard.

FAQs about the changes to Regulation 19 are available as a download on the right.