Experts have questioned whether a new $500 voucher scheme for New South Wales parents to access before- and after-school care will be enough to change behaviours altered by the pandemic.
The $155m scheme, announced by the NSW premier Dominic Perrottet on Monday, will cover the gap fee for care services, covering about 60 sessions per primary student.
“This pandemic has been incredibly tough, balancing homeschooling with work, we want to do whatever we can to improve the daily juggle,” he said on Monday.
“This $500 voucher will put a downward pressure on family budgets … (and) help mums and dads balance work and family life.”
However, Terry Rawnsley, a demographics and urban economics expert at KPMG, said getting parents back into the office would not be as easy as making childcare services temporarily more affordable.
“There is this entrenched behavioural change for people over the last 12 months, especially in NSW where before and after school care has dropped off,” he said.
“Behaviour is really hard to change.”
Rawnsley expected the vouchers to be cashed soonest by parents who wanted or needed to go into their workplaces more regularly as the economy opened back up.
But he said the temporary nature of the scheme meant people would not be likely to take on extra shifts or start a new job because of it.
“In the eastern suburbs where there’s a high percentage of work from home workers, they probably won’t get a big rush of activity,” he said.
“But if you think about the southwestern suburbs, the growth areas in the northwest … they are the places where you might expect to see more of an impact.”
Sam Page, chief executive of Early Childhood Australia, welcomed the attempt to boost enrolment numbers, which dropped drastically in the second half of 2021, but said she feared the sector would be able to cope with an influx of new students.
“The vouchers are a terrific idea but do we have the staff to cope if there’s a sudden change in demand? Because there are workforce shortages,” she said.
“It will be a matter of ensuring that the service has had the capacity to respond as children come back into outside school hours care.”
Page said enrolling in before- or after-school care could potentially help students readjust after long periods at home.
“Some kids might be feeling quite isolated, quite anxious about school, finding it difficult to be with peers so for them to be part of an outside of school hours programme might be more beneficial,” she said.
“It’s up to parents to weigh those risks themselves.”
Vouchers will be available through Service NSW from the end of February.
