00:00Ying Jiao Ju has worked at 50 childcare centres over a decade.
00:06She says workers now have too much on their plates, lesson planning, report writing, cleaning
00:12up, even taking out the garbage.
00:14To be very honest, doing all of those things in a day and over the weeks, it's pretty hard.
00:23And that's before workers get to the most important task, caring for children.
00:27Sometimes the days are gone by so fast and so busy that educators sometimes even forget
00:33to, for example, drink water.
00:35An Australia first study of 570 workers has found educators have what's been described
00:41as an alarming number of duties, with more than 70 per cent working on average seven to
00:46nine unpaid hours every week and only able to spend two and a half quality hours a day
00:52with children.
00:53These are not just babysitters, they are qualified educators and degree qualified teachers.
00:59Educators are being exploited for the care that they have for the children that they're
01:04caring and educating.
01:05If things continue in the sector the way that they are, we are going to continue to
01:10see burnout.
01:11We are going to continue to see attrition in the sector.
01:15As governments grapple with a response to rising community concerns about the safety of
01:19children in childcare, this study has prompted calls for a stock take of all duties required
01:24of educators to make sure they have time for their most important task, keeping children
01:29safe.
01:30It's impacting educators, it's impacting children and it's certainly impacting quality
01:35and safety of care.
01:37The government described the findings as troubling and ministers from around the country will soon
01:41meet to discuss further reform.
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