Five reasons to consider a career in childhood education

Challenging. Rewarding. Hilarious. Important. NECESSARY! Providing early childhood education and care is many things – including a career that is growing fast. Here’s five reasons why it’s something you should consider if you’re looking to start doing something you love, and love what you do.

It’s rewarding

Early Childhood educators play a key role in the lives of young children and their families. As an early childhood educator and/or carer, you are laying foundations for how a child will learn and engage for the rest of their lives. You’re playing an important role to empower the children you work with and ensure they have the skills to continue learning as they grow.

You’ll be in demand

The Federal Government has estimated the early childhood education and care sector will grow by more than 50,000 jobs by 2020. Part of that is because Government regulations now require more educators per child than what they did five years ago. At the same time, demand for childhood educators and carers is growing every day – chances are you know at least one family who would like to be able to access more childcare choices than what they currently have.

You’ll be challenged

Anyone who has spent more than an hour with a three year old knows that you have little time to rest your mind! The questions! The chatter! The indignation! But that’s also part of the fun – discovering that someone so young can be so clever… so engaging… so insightful. Working with children means you can enjoy this reality – and the challenges it brings – every day.

You will have choices

The Early Childhood Education and Care sector is varied. Depending on your qualification, you will be able to work in a range of settings – from a kindergarten, to a childcare centre, to a family home. You could be involved in school-aged activities, like after-school-hours care. And if you have a gift for leadership, and the drive to further your qualifications, it could lead to supervisory or administrative roles in this sector. As we mentioned before – this is an industry that is in high demand – you’ll always have somewhere to work.

You can make a difference

Working with children isn’t just about playing games. Research shows that stimulating, engaging education in the first five years of life has a huge impact on how a child grows, speaks and interacts with the world, now and in the future. A child’s emotional well-being is directly linked to how and what they learn, and the support they receive while doing it; parents play a big part of this, but childhood educators do, too; friendships and relationships formed in early childhood education and care settings are the stepping stones to how children will interact with others in the future.

If you’d like to learn how you can help map out those stepping stones, contact are-able’s training division to ask about their Early Childhood Education and Care courses.