CHRIS Bourke has welcomed the release of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) results today, which he says again shows the ACT performing well against the national average.
“The AEDC measures children’s development across five key developmental domains including physical health and wellbeing; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive skills (school-based); and communications skills and general knowledge,” Chris said.
“Compared to the national average, the ACT has a lower percentage of children developmentally vulnerable in four of the five domains.
“We know investing in the early years of a child’s life has positive long-term outcomes.
“The ACT Government invests in the Child and Family Centres, which provide a range of programs aimed at building strong families and supporting children’s social, emotional and psychological wellbeing.
“Families can also access vital health checks, including vaccinations, for their children at the Centres, through the Maternal and Child Health (MACH) Nursing Service.
“The results provide evidence that will guide future health, education and community policy and planning. The 2015 results show most children in the ACT were not developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains, which is consistent with data collected in 2009 and 2012.
“The data did highlight physical health and wellbeing, the only domain the ACT didn’t perform better than the national average, as an area where the ACT Government needs to do further work.
“The AEDC is a national collection of data which tells us how well prepared children are for starting school life and what we need to focus on to assist in this preparation.
“While the ACT is performing well overall, we do need to do some extra work in the domain of physical health and wellbeing.
Dr Bourke also said it was pleasing to see a strong commitment to the AEDC across government, Catholic and independent education sectors, with 100 per cent of ACT schools participating in 2015.
To view the Australian Early Development Census results visit aedc.gov.au
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