South Australia’s royal commission into early childhood education led by Julia Gillard has released an interim report. The key recommendation is preschool for all three-year-olds (in a move similar to other states). But the report notes one of the critical considerations around this change will be the early education workforce.
SA’s report comes as the Productivity Commission begins a wide-ranging inquiry into early childhood education and care in Australia.
As part of this, the commission is looking at the workforce. We already know there are high rates of turnover and burnout among early childhood educators. This makes it difficult for people to make a sustainable career in the sector. It also makes it harder for services to find staff and for families to find a childcare place for their children.
Our new research looks at why early childhood educators are burning out and how we can fix this.
Educator turnover
Like other essential sectors the issue of burnout in early education has become more pressing since the beginning of the pandemic.
A 2021 a union survey of 4,000 educators revealed 73% planned to leave the sector within the next three years due to excessive workload, stress, low pay and status, lack of professional development and career progression.
It also found 82% “always” or “often” felt rushed when performing key caring tasks in the past month.
As of, 2022, educator job advertisements had doubled since the pandemic.
What is burnout?
Burnout is complex and can involve many things, including:
- ongoing physical and mental fatigue
- low sense of personal achievement
- emotional exhaustion
- depersonalisation, where you feel separate from your body or true feelings.
Burnout matters, because it harms educators’ wellbeing, the quality of children’s education, leads to educators leaving and then the ability of parents to work (especially women), and businesses to thrive.
Our new study
We wanted to understand what causes educator burnout, with the aim of helping policymakers and governments plan better support for the sector.
To do this, we reviewed 39 studies about the drivers of early childhood educator burnout from 13 countries, including Australia.
This type of a study – called a “systematic review” – is a powerful way for researchers to provide a full and clear summary of what we know about a topic.
What leads to burnout?
We found educator burnout can be driven by a range of factors.
Certain personal circumstances make an educator more likely to experience burnout. For example, those with lower household income, or those with increased family responsibility report higher feelings of burnout. This category includes those who are single, widowed, divorced or separated.
Younger, less experienced educators were particularly vulnerable to depersonalisation. Male educators were more likely to experience burnout than their female colleagues.
Educators said poor mental health (particularly depression and mental distress) played a crucial role in their burnout. More socially connected educators who are supported by friends, family and/or their faith were less likely to experience burnout.
How services treat staff matters
Educators from services where there was little or no focus on wellbeing were more likely to report burnout.
This included services with scarce emotional support strategies – such as being able to debrief with peers, or access counselling or coaching. These services also showed a lack of respect for educators’ work-life balance – such as demanding they do extra unpaid hours or not being flexible about leave for family reasons.
Educators discussed the fatigue caused by “surface acting”, where they had to pretend they were (or were not) experiencing certain emotions to please children, staff and parents. For example, an educator might be feeling exhausted and overwhelmed due to their workload, but they had to pretend to feel energetic and enthusiastic when engaging with children and families.
Poor professional relationships were associated with feelings of stress. This included feeling undermined by parents, teaching children with behavioural challenges, and negative relationships with colleagues and directors.
Funding and status
Our research showed educators experienced stress when they had few resources, but very high expectations to produce “quality” learning environments and experiences for children.
Some work was more likely to cause exhaustion, such as constantly trying to prove to authorities they were providing a “quality” service by collecting data.
Inadequate income can push educators to leave their positions. It can also lead to reduced motivation, and increase the number of sick days.
Educators’ feelings of burnout were also linked to a belief they had a low status in society. This was more pronounced if they taught younger children, or if they had been working in the sector a long time.
Both groups reported being affected by a lack of professional development and opportunities for promotion.
How can we reduce burnout?
Our review showed there are some effective ways to improve educators’ wellbeing, prevent burnout and keep them from leaving their jobs.
These include coaching, so educators can get feedback and develop their careers, peer mentoring so they know they are not alone and counselling, so they have an emotional outlet to reflect on their work.
If we want to keep educators in these vital roles we need to actively support them to stay.
The author acknowledges the work of Joanne Ng (lead researcher) and Courtney McNamara for their research on the systematic review.
This article was originally published in The Conversation and was republished with permission.
I am a room leader in a 0-2 room. I believe the legal ratios for educators to children across the ages (0-5) are not enough. I find the expectation of families on educators are unreasonable for group care contexts and, staffing arrangements. I find that programming is taken up with educators being concerned about what they have written for children rather than implementing holistic learning opportunities and creativity in doing so. The passion is quickly taken from your role due to the sheer number of children you must care for combined with educator competence. It seems that upper and middle management combined with business owners perceive this industry as a money-making investment when it is completely contradictory of education philosophy that is spouted by early childhood settings as marketing jargon. Burnout couples low morale due to the expectation of families, middle management and, rates of pay in the current economic climate where most early educators couldn’t afford a house on their wage.
I concur!
I started working in the sector in the late 90’s, before the EYLF was implemented, and have been an educator at a Room Leader level on and off since then. The burnout is real.
I am a fan of the EYLF as a document, however, in practice, from my experience, it is nearly impossible to achieve the Learning Outcomes with the current ratios. (I too work in the 0-2 room). Most of my lunch breaks are taken up with the writing of Daily Highlights as it’s impossible to do them on the floor with the children. 1:4 ratios when you have babies under 1 year old does not work. For example, under these ratios, you can have one educator with a 4 month, 6 Month, 8 month and 9 month old babies, who has the responsibility to ensure all individual children’s care routines are followed and documented. What happens when 3 out of the 4 babies are hungry or need to be rocked to sleep, or are crying for any other reason, at the same time? Educators, however, are told “it’s okay as we are in ratio”. This is not best practice, and the mental toll it has on Educators who literally do not have enough hands to do everything, and feel that they are letting down the children and families, is another huge factor in burnout. Add to that, the lack of resources, lack of programming time and low wages, is it any wonder that educator turnover is so high?
I appreciate that upon reflection, Peer Support and counselling have been advised as potential solutions to mitigate burnout, however we need to get to the real source of the problem, which in my opinion is a change to the ratios for the 0-2 age groups. I’ve worked with a lot of passionate, amazing educators over the years, who I know would still be working in the sector if we had more Human Resources. More educators means better care and education for the children and less stress on educators. Sadly, I too will be leaving the industry soon if changes are not made, and I know many others who are doing the same.
How interesting that I came across this! I have only been back at work for 3 months as a casual for a very good company. I am paid well, the children are fed amazing meals and snacks everyday.
Already, I’m feeling burnt out. The sheer number of children in a centre is mind blowing.
If I do lunch cover I am expected to remember up to 125 kids names! Then the next day I’m at a totally different centre with another 100 odd kids.
Enough to drive anyone insane.
Casuals get no orientation, we are expected to walk in and perform, then if something goes wrong? We are the scape-goat.
I have witnessed permanent staff crying in the staff room, staff walking out and not being able to be found for half an hour. Meanwhile the room ratio isn’t legal.
Meltdowns everywhere. Staff are generally very nice, but bullying does occur frequently due to stress.
I love children, but why would anyone do this to themselves?
People are busting their guts for the kids of Australia, but $$$ and profit means staff are stretched to breaking point.
Ratio of 1:4 in the Babies Room – have you ever tried to care for FOUR screaming babies on your own? Octopus?
I can tell you now, it’s impossible, and yes, the babies end up bumped and bruised as they wait for us to get to them.
Helicopter mums keep away. It’s VERY upsetting.
Most babies are thankfully at least 6 months old.
Surely we could at least look after our babies better? Even the UK has a ratio of 1:3 in the Babies Room.
If this cannot be achieved, then the least we can do is be honest and let the parents see how bad it gets by putting cameras in the room.