Australia's childcare sector is emerging from the Omicron wave in "crisis", with more than one in 10 centres needing a government waiver to legally operate because they do not have enough workers.
New figures from the Education Department show that 11.2 per cent of the country's childcare centres need special permission to open, due to staffing shortages, most of them because they have been unable to employ a single university-educated teacher as mandated by law.
The majority of educators in early learning have diploma- or certificate-level training but the government also requires at least one university graduate to lead staff and communicate with families.
In 2013, the number of centres granted waivers for staffing was just 5 per cent. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, it was 7.4 per cent.
Macquarie University's Professor Sandi Wong — a leading expert on early learning — likened childcare centres operating without an educational leader to the Australia cricket team playing without a captain.
She said the sector was "in crisis".
"Without those leaders, the quality of the service is going to be compromised," she said.
"And that will only impact on the children and their learning and development.
"[Without such educators] we just don't see the high quality that we want and that those children need.
"They tend to be the ones [who] notice if the children aren't growing in quite the way that they should be. They lead the team to support families and to work with families [who are], often, going through quite challenging times."
The new data comes as the sector deals with a wave of job losses during the pandemic as well as significant economic pressures from COVID-19 closures.
It's not yet known how many early learning educators have left the sector over the past two yeas but, according to lobby group Thrive by Five, employers were looking for more than 14,000 early learning staff in December 2021.
Thrive by Five said that meant early learning operators had positions vacant equivalent to 9.5 per cent of the entire workforce.
The early learning sector has received bailouts from the federal government during COVID-19's Delta and Alpha lockdowns, including free childcare for all in the winter of 2020.
Under pressure over the treatment of women, the government pledged more than $3 billion more for preschool and childcare rebates in its most recent budget.
Senior government figures have said that — compared to other parts of the economy — the industry had received generous aid.
However, many operators and experts said the government should be increasing its annual, $9 billion spend in order to lift wages and ensure operators can attract and retain good staff.
'They need us to stay open'
Those staff shortages have impacted parents as the Omicron wave of COVID-19 saw infections soar and parents left scrambling for care.
Samantha Callaghan is a mother to Patrick, 4, and Rachel, 2.
Last month, the centre she sends her children to — in Haberfield in Sydney's west — had to close its doors because a student tested positive for COVID-19.
Ms Callaghan got the call as she was preparing for a busy week.
"The centre was closed for one week, completely, and some of the rooms were closed for a further week. So, from that point on ... [Patrick and Rachel had] been off for about four weeks, with [the] Christmas holiday," Ms Callaghan said.
"Their behaviour, the way they reacted to things, was very different."
Maria Routsis is the director and an educator at the centre where the Callaghan children attend.
"It's been challenging as a service. It's been challenging as an individual. It's been challenging as a director," Ms Routsis said.
Ms Routsis knows firsthand how hard it is to fill staff positions right now, with waivers common across the sector.
She said more funding was needed to pay staff wages attractive enough to retain them in the industry.
She appreciated how much the families in her local community depended on their service and just how much they needed her to stay open.
"We do have a lot of frontline workers [as clients]. We've got teachers, we've got nurses, we've got some doctors, we've got a very wide community of families [who] attend the service and they need our doors to stay open," Ms Routsis said.
Centres may soon 'need to close'
Advocates, including Professor Wong, are warning that sudden closures may not fade after Omicron's peak.
"Many are leaving the sector all together. And that's really troubling, considering we already have a shortage," Professor Wong said.
Sam Page — who lobbies on behalf of operators with Early Childhood Australia — said her members were hurting and needed additional support.
An executive at of the largest operators in the industry — who requested anonymity to speak freely — told the ABC the current situation was "awful" and predicted centres would soon "need to close".
Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert declined to comment.
