DERECHOS A LA REINSERCIÓN SOCIAL Y AL TRATO DIGNO

establishment of a more highly skilled, knowledgeable and professional workforce able to work in collaborative, critically reflective and cohesive environments that support mentorship and ongoing professional development (COAG, 2007, 2009b) . This section examines the influence these new competencies will have on the professional practice and identity of vocationally-trained child care practitioners.

The EYLF reflects current research emphasising that the quality of practitioners involved in early years service provision is considered essential in terms of enhancing a child’s social, emotional and cognitive development. This now places greater emphasis on the importance of high quality integrated education and care based on critically reflective collaborative environments (DEEWR, 2012a; OECD, 2006, 2012; Rush, 2006). Sumsion and Wong (2011) highlighted the importance of practitioner implementation of the EYLF in a professional and critically reflective manner moving beyond an emphasis on practical and routine ways of knowing and practice. This new framework aims to reposition the child care practitioner as a collaborative educational partner with university qualified early childhood teachers moving away from perceptions of vocationally-trained practitioners’ as child care workers.

Qualified teachers employed in ECEC services will now be referred to as the educational leader and will be employed to lead the development and implementation of a pedagogical learning program providing clear goals and curriculum direction (DEEWR, 2009) . The use in the EYLF, of terms such as “intentional teaching”, “pedagogy”, “learning outcomes” and “assessment” highlights a move away from the more traditional approaches of nurturing and care towards systems of teaching and accountability (Ortlipp et al., 2011, p. 63). The NQF stipulates the importance of an education leaders’ ability to support their lesser trained colleagues in their implementation of the program, acknowledging and accounting for their varying abilities and learning styles (DEEWR, 2013a) . This requirement emphasises the need for cohesive environments that encourage

professional mentorship and ongoing professional development for both vocational and university trained practitioners.

Noble (2007) proposed that for those practitioners working in collaborative workplaces, the nature of their identity may be significantly influenced by the context of their workplace environment. She suggests that reform of ECEC with more emphasis on integrated education and care may have direct implications on the practitioners working within services. Noble advocated for a more cohesive and internally supportive workforce in which new graduates transitioning into professional practice are provided with opportunities to engage in learning and reflection in order to gain membership into the professional community. Collaboration and partnership are essential in acquiring this sense of membership.

With much emphasis now being placed on education and collaboration within ECEC practice and a paradigm shift in the way early childhood development is viewed by policymakers, questions have arisen regarding the impact of the EYLF on vocationally-trained practitioners’ professional identity (Ortlipp et al., 2011). Ortlipp et al. (2011) examined if and how curriculum interventions such as the EYLF shape educators’ perceptions of professional identity. Interview data was sourced from 28 case sites across Australia during the 2009 EYLF pilot study. Analysis highlighted that practitioner engagement with the framework both individually and collaboratively brought new awareness and understandings of the educative nature of what they were already accomplishing in practice. Critical reflections on their educative practice made their position as teachers visible, therefore legitimising their perceptions of themselves as professional educators. Wider recognition of themselves as educators from both within and outside the sector through dissemination of the EYLF also helped to circulate discourses positioning them as educators and professionals.

In light of the new NQF reforms practitioners qualified under the vocational system with a two year Diploma of Children’s Services are now purportedly recognised under the same professional umbrella as university trained early childhood teachers working in the long day child care sector. Since the introduction of the EYLF, the label educator is now used to describe all professionals who work with children in ECEC. Working from

the assumption that all educators are united in a shared goal of facilitating children's learning and wellbeing the EYLF Working Party deemed this change in title appropriate (Sumsion et al., 2009). Fenech, Sumsion, and Shepherd (2010) expressed concern with the loose application of the term professional to all staff working in the sector. Fenech et al. (2012) suggested that this labelling is problematic in its failing to recognise university trained teachers as experts in the field thus diluting the complex nature of quality and the status of qualified teachers within the long day ECEC sector.

The successful implementation of the current NQF reform guidelines and associated workforce initiatives will demand high standards and innovative methods of education, training and professional development (Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2011, 2013). To support government aims to professionalise the ECEC sector and promote the status of the workforce, evaluation of both VET and higher education providers, in light of these reforms, is essential (Bretherton, 2011). With the implementation of the EYLF, there is also a need to closely examine the knowledge, belief systems and practices necessary in the development and implementation of high quality care and education environments for young children in ECEC. Such endeavours may provide a guide to assist training and education institutions in implementing appropriate approaches that will assist the workforce in negotiating more critically reflective, collaborative and pedagogical environments, generating new epistemological understandings, professional partnerships and stronger perceptions of professional identity. These are the directions that were considered important through the last decade (Macfarlane, Noble, & Cartmel, 2004).