Summary

Key Highlights as at 1 July 2008

• There were 4,649 early childhood education services, an increase of 3.8% (170) from 1 July 2007.
• There were 3,881 licensed and/or chartered services, an increase of 3.5% (131) from 1 July 2007.
• There were 768 licence-exempt ECE groups, an increase of 5.3% (39) from 1 July 2007.
• The number of early childhood education services has increased by 6.3% (275) since 2004. This includes 307 more licensed and/or chartered services and 32 less licence-exempt groups.
• Of the 3,880 (excluding Correspondence School) licensed and/or chartered early childhood education services, 63.7% (2,471) are community based.  The remaining 36.3% (1,409) are privately owned services.
• Of the 2,083 education and care services (including casual-education and care), which account for 53.7% of all licensed services as at 1 July 2008, 40.0%  (833) are community based and 60.0% (1,250) are privately owned.  Education and care services tend to offer all-day, flexible hour programmes that require little parental involvement.  These services have shown the most increase in numbers since 1990.
• There were 198,784 enrolments in early childhood education.
• There were 176,993 enrolments in licensed early childhood education services, an increase of 8.5% (13,908) since 2004.
• Of the 97,756 enrolments in education and care services, 39.6% (38,676) were in community-based services and 60.4% (59,080) were in privately owned services.