Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are engaged in high quality, culturally appropriate early childhood education in their early years.

By 2025, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in Year Before Full‑time Schooling (YBFS) early childhood education to 95%.

The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the state‑specific YBFS age cohort who are enrolled in a preschool program.

This measure is defined as:

Numerator – the estimated number of children in the state-specific YBFS age cohort enrolled in a preschool program

Denominator – the estimated number of children in the state-specific YBFS potential population

and is presented as a percentage.

National Agreement on Closing the Gap July 2020

15 June 2023

Target

A high or increasing proportion is desirable.

Name (numerator): Preschool Education, Australia

Frequency: Annual

Name (denominator): Estimates and Projections for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population (revised data for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 in the March 2022 Dashboard update).

Frequency: Annual

Documentation (links): https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/education/preschool-education-australia

(The data source for children with disability are State and Territory government department collections.)

Provider name: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Provider area: Preschool education (Demography for population data for remoteness area and socio‑economic status)

(The data for children with disability is provided by State and Territory government departments.)

2016

This is an existing National Indigenous Reform Agreement (NIRA) target. While the official baseline for this target is 2015, data are only comparable from 2016 onwards (see Data quality considerations).

2022

2025

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status.

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status, by sex.

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status, by remoteness area.

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status, by Index of Relative Socio‑economic Disadvantage (IRSD) quintile.

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status, children with disability.

Numerator divided by Denominator multiplied by 100.

For remoteness and socio‑economic status, data on the number of children in the YBFS cohort is not available and therefore the four‑year-old population is used as a proxy to calculate rates.

Counting rules

The state-specific YBFS age cohort is an estimate of a single year cohort for the population that will transition to full‑time schooling in the following year. The state‑specific YBFS definition uses the preschool and school age entry provisions of the state or territory in which the child usually resides. See Preschool Education, Australia methodology (http://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/preschool-education-australia-methodology/)

Numerator (all):

• Australian totals include all states and territories (including Other Territories).

Numerator (Indigenous status, sex):

• Counts by Indigenous status include a share of children enrolled with a ‘not stated’ Indigenous status (in proportion to the ratio of children enrolled with known Indigenous status). Proportions are calculated from non‑rounded counts.
• Excludes counts of children aged four and five years of age in the state-specific cohort who are enrolled in school (early starters).

Numerator (disability):

• Counts exclude preschool programs funded by the Australian Government only (for example, preschool programs delivered in centre-based care funded via the child care subsidy) – data by disability status not available.

Denominator (Indigenous status, sex, remoteness, socio‑economic status):

• The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is calculated from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population estimates and projections (series B).
• The non‑Indigenous population is calculated by subtracting the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population from the total population).

Denominator (remoteness and socio‑economic status)

• Counts include children aged four years (the estimated number of children in the state-specific YBFS potential population are not available by remoteness or socio‑economic status). For estimates of the population aged four years, by remoteness: for 2017–2022, only national data are available for the remoteness areas ‘major cities’, ‘inner and outer regional areas’ and ‘remote and very remote areas’. For estimates of the population aged four years, by IRSD quintile: only national data are available for 2016.

Disaggregations:

• Sex refers to a person's biological characteristics. A person's sex is usually described as being either male or female, but may be recorded as ‘other’. See Person—sex, code X (aihw.gov.au)
• Remoteness area is classified according to the ABS 2016 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) (see ASGS: Volume 5 - Remoteness Structure, July 2016 (see abs.gov.au) using SA1 as the building block.
• Socio‑economic status of the locality is classified according to the ABS Socio‑Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA): Index of Relative Socio‑economic Disadvantage (IRSD), 2016 (see abs.gov.au) using SA1 as building block. Data are reported by IRSD quintile that are determined at the Australian level and exclude children with unknown or unavailable SEIFA score.
• Disability is defined and counted differently across jurisdictions (see table CtG3A.9 footnotes).

Data for Preschool Education, Australia is collected through the National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection (NECECC). The data is not fully comparable over time, or across jurisdictions, due to differences and changes in coverage and methodologies. See Preschool Education, Australia methodology (http://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/preschool-education-australia-methodology/) for a description of the data collection methodologies and quality declarations.

Data values have been randomly adjusted using perturbation to avoid the release of confidential data. Discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.

Methods for the identification of Indigenous status vary by jurisdiction. For data supplied via the Australian Government's child care subsidy system (CCSS), children of families who choose not to identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander are classified as ‘non-Indigenous’ rather than ‘unknown/not stated’. Nationally in 2022, YBFS preschool enrolments with a ‘not stated’ Indigenous status were 0.5% of all YBFS preschool enrolments. (Tasmania had the largest proportion with 4.5%, followed by South Australia with 4.3%.)

From 2018, and previously from 2016, the ABS improved the approach to data linkage in the NECECC. Improvements were made to the way records were linked (when representing the same child), within data provided by a jurisdiction, or across centre based day care data provided by both the Australian Government and state and territory governments. These changes reduced over‑counts of children enrolled in a preschool program.

Enrolment proportions at the sub‑national level (such as state and territory) may exceed 100% for some areas due to the numerator and denominator being from different sources. The population (denominator) data is the best available estimates. However, the accuracy of population estimates tends to decrease the further away the year from the Census upon which they are based (currently the Dashboard uses population data based on the 2016 Census). Please see the How to interpret the data page for more information.

The calculation of preschool enrolment rates for this indicator differs to the calculations used for reporting under the Preschool Reform Agreement (PRA) and the annual Report on Government Services (RoGS). The calculations reported for the PRA do not restrict to the year before full‑time schooling, and the RoGS does not prorate for unknown Indigenous status.

The data on preschool enrolments does not necessarily reflect whether a child regularly attends the preschool program.

Tasmania and the Australia Capital Territory have relatively small Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations compared to the other states and territories which means year-to-year variability in single year of age populations may be more pronounced. This may result in year-to-year variability of the rate of preschool enrolment in these jurisdictions and should be used with caution. Please see the How to interpret the data page for more information.

Disaggregations:

• Sex: all children have been described as either male or female in the NECECC.
• Remoteness area: the data is presented as a rate per 100 children aged four years and are not directly comparable with the target indicator. Data for the non‑Indigenous population aged four years is not available for 2021 and 2022 (at the time of the June 2023 update).
• Socio‑economic status of the locality: The data is presented as a rate per 100 children aged four years and is not directly comparable with the target indicator.
• Disability is defined differently across jurisdictions and data is sourced from different data sources to the other data for this target. The disability data is not comparable across states or territories nor with the target indicator and other disaggregations.

Additional disaggregations required for future reporting:

• remoteness areas using YBFS population denominators
• socio‑economic status of the locality using YBFS population denominators
• disability status using comparable definitions across jurisdictions and YBFS population denominators.