The ACT has the most expensive childcare services and the least qualified early education workforce in the country, figures from a Productivity Commission report show.
The Report on Government Services also reveals the capital has the most educated population.
The median weekly cost of 50 hours of centre-based child care in the ACT has jumped to $643 per week.
This was $78 more than the national average and $20 per week more than parents were paying in 2021.
Tasmania had the cheapest childcare at $521 per week.
The data is based on the cost to parents before a fee reduction from the childcare subsidy and may not reflect the fee quoted by individual services.
Parents in the ACT have the least access to childcare services that operate in non-standard hours. Only 4.6 per cent of services open before 7am and only 2.4 per cent open after 6:30pm.
Meanwhile, in Queensland three-quarters of services open before 7am and in Western Australia and South Australia half of services open early.
Early childhood education and care staff in the ACT were the least qualified in the country as only 59.3 per cent had a relevant formal qualification, compared to 76 per cent nationally.
The ACT has the lowest proportion of childcare services that are meeting or exceeding the national quality standards, at 77.8 per cent of services compared to the national average of 87.5 per cent.
Last year 73 services were working towards the national quality standards and one required significant improvement.
The report also showed a lot more year 12 school leavers were in full-time education, training or employment in 2022 (87 per cent) compared to 2021 (79.1 per cent).
About half of year 12 school leavers were working full time last year compared to about a third of school leavers in the previous year, indicating a trend towards entering the workforce in the later pandemic years.
The ACT was the most educated state with more than three quarters of residents aged 20-64 years with post-school qualifications last years, while 13.5 per cent of this cohort were working towards a qualification.
Nationally, 70 per cent of 20 to 64-year-olds had post-school qualifications and 11.4 per cent were in tertiary study.
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