Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care

The Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care at SGSCC International is a practical qualification for people who want to work with young children in long day care, preschools, family day care and outside school hours care. You learn how children grow and learn from birth to five, how to plan and run a play-based curriculum, how to keep children safe and healthy, and how to work with families and other staff. The course is built around the skills you use every day in a real service: observing children, writing learning stories, setting up indoor and outdoor environments, guiding behaviour, and meeting the National Quality Framework and the Early Years Learning Framework.

As a diploma, this sits at Level 5 on the Australian Qualifications Framework. It is a vocational qualification, so it is delivered through units of competency rather than the semester-and-credit-point structure you see in a bachelor degree. Each unit covers a specific job task, and you need to be assessed as competent in all of them to finish. The course runs for 1.5 years. Delivery usually mixes classroom or online theory with hands-on work in a registered early childhood service, because the diploma requires a set number of hours of professional experience placement. That placement is where most students say the real learning happens, you are in a room with children, supervised by an educator, putting the theory into practice.

You will finish with a set of skills that employers in Australian early childhood services expect: planning and implementing a curriculum that follows children's interests, supporting children with additional needs, working within legal and ethical requirements, and communicating clearly with families and colleagues. You also learn to work as part of a team and to take on some leadership tasks, like supervising volunteers or students, which is what separates a diploma graduate from a certificate III holder.

This course suits people who want to work directly with children and lead a room or a small service. It is also a pathway to further study, many graduates go on to a bachelor degree in early childhood education, which can lead to teacher registration. If you are an international student, you can work up to 48 hours per fortnight while your course is in session. After you finish, you may be eligible for the Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) post-study work stream, depending on your circumstances. English requirements for entry are set by the institution, and the Student visa has its own English threshold set by the Department of Home Affairs. Check the official CRICOS page and the SGSCC International website for the exact tuition, intake dates and English scores.

• Early childhood educator, work in long day care, preschool or kindergarten rooms, planning and delivering programs for children from birth to five.
• Room leader, take responsibility for a specific age group, guide other educators and communicate with families.
• Family day care educator, run your own home-based service, caring for a small group of children.
• Outside school hours care educator, work before and after school and during holidays with primary school-aged children.
• Inclusion support educator, support children with additional needs alongside the main educator team.
• Educational leader, in some services, a diploma-qualified educator can take on curriculum leadership and mentor other staff.

These roles are found across Australia in privately run and community-managed long day care centres, preschools and kindergartens, family day care schemes, and outside school hours care services. The early childhood sector is one of the largest employers in Australian communities, and diploma-qualified staff are needed in every state and territory.