Regulatory Practice Statement

Foreword

The Education Standards Board (Board) regulates the provision of education and care services to children and young people from birth through to secondary school in South Australia.

Access to high quality education and care services can contribute to better social, educational and employment outcomes for South Australia’s children and young people. Early childhood education and care services also support families by enabling workforce participation of parents and guardians.

Effective regulation of early childhood and education services is fundamental to achieving better outcomes for children and young people and supports the commitment of the South Australian Government to strive for excellence in every child and young person’s growth, learning and development.

We provide day to day regulatory oversight through authorised officers who have specific powers to monitor, respond and investigate to ensure high standards of competence and conduct by education and care service providers.

We are committed to continuously developing and improving our regulatory approach and regulatory capability to achieve our regulatory outcomes while reducing unnecessary regulatory burden.

We are cognisant of the broader regulatory environment and maintain positive partnerships and working relationships with co- and peer- regulators to support efficient and effective delivery of our regulatory functions.

We recognise that transparent and meaningful engagement with our regulated parties and stakeholders helps inform our regulatory work and deliver better regulatory outcomes.

Continuing to ensure the best interests of children and young people in an evolving environment is central to our regulatory role, and the various regulatory activities we undertake.

This statement aims to provide an understanding of how and why we regulate to support achieving improved outcomes for South Australia’s children and young people.

Introduction

This Regulatory Practice Statement provides an overview of the Education Standards Board’s approach to regulating the provision of education and care services to children and young people from birth through to secondary school in South Australia.

It sets out the regulatory frameworks we operate under and the way we approach our regulatory responsibilities, through the application of regulatory principles. Applying principles helps us achieve a consistent, risk-based approach to regulating as part of meeting our regulatory obligations and achieving our regulatory outcomes.

The statement aims to provide clarity to regulated parties about what we do and how we do it, establish clear roles and responsibilities and outline how we will be accountable for our performance, in support of our transparency principle.

Why we regulate

In regulating early childhood and education providers, our primary consideration is the welfare and best interests of children and young people.

We regulate to ensure high standards of competence and conduct by education and care service providers, in order to:

• recognise that all children and young people should have access to high quality education and care services that address their developmental needs; support educational achievement; promote enthusiasm for learning; and ensure their health, safety and well-being
• provide for a diverse range of services for families to access
• enhance public confidence in the operation of services.

Registration gives the public confidence that a school has:

• governance arrangements in place to ensure accountability for the satisfactory quality of the education instruction provided.
• policies and procedures for student learning and assessment that effectively deliver education services for each stage of schooling.
• adequate provision for the safety, health and welfare of students.

Regulatory frameworks

The Board was established in 2012 in accordance with the Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011(Act).

The Board operates under three distinct regulatory frameworks, depicted in the table below:

Early childhood education and care	School registration	International education
Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011 Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Regulations 2011	Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011 Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Regulations 2011	Education and Early Childhood Services Act 2019 Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000

Early childhood education and care

We regulate a range of early childhood services under the National Quality Framework (NQF), including long day care, family day care, preschools, and outside school hours care. Services that do not fall in the scope of the NQF are known as residual services and are also subject to regulation. They include in-home care, mobile care and occasional care services.

The Board is the regulatory authority under the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 (National Law). The NQF provides the quality standards to improve education and care in the delivery of early childhood services.

The NQF includes:

• National Law and Regulations
• National Quality Standards (NQS)
• assessment and rating process
• approved learning frameworks.

Residual services are regulated through a modified use of the National Law and through service-specific regulations and standards. The modifications and exclusions of the National Law relating to residual early childhood services are listed in Schedule 2 of the Act.

Irrespective of whether the service is regulated under National Law or the Act, we undertake the following regulatory activities for early childhood services:

• provider and service application approvals: assessing and determining applications to ensure providers are fit and proper to operate a service and that services operate in a way that is compliant with relevant legislation.
• monitoring: proactively and reactively assessing compliance with relevant legislation to ensure providers comply with their regulatory obligations and continuously improve quality of education and care at their services. <…