In early childhood education, conversations about qualifications often carry strong emotions, and for good reason. Many educators have invested years of study, sacrifice, and professional identity into their degrees. When qualification pathways change or become shorter, it can understandably feel unfair. These feelings deserve to be acknowledged rather than dismissed.
However, when we pause, reflect, and look honestly at practice over time, a more complex and important truth begins to emerge.
Qualifications alone do not determine the quality of care, teaching, or advocacy that children receive.
Across more than thirty years in early learning, I have worked alongside educators with a wide range of qualifications. I have observed degree-qualified teachers who disengage from practice, sit on the edges of children’s play, and view their role as a job rather than a responsibility to children. I have also worked with Certificate III and Diploma educators who are deeply reflective, highly intentional, and strong advocates for children and families. Their thinking is visible. Their interactions are purposeful. Their commitment to children is clear.
This experience highlights something the sector often struggles to say out loud. Care, curiosity, and ethical commitment are not guaranteed by a qualification pathway.
Shifting the question
When we step back from emotion, not to invalidate it but to gain clarity, the real question becomes:
How do we ensure that anyone working with children is there for the right reasons, open to growth, and consistently acting in children’s best interests, regardless of how they entered the profession?
The answer lies less in qualifications and more in leadership, mentoring, and professional culture.
Professional disposition matters
What consistently distinguishes effective educators is not the length of their study, but their professional disposition. Educators who thrive demonstrate reflective capacity, openness to feedback, and a willingness to continue learning. They can articulate why they do what they do and understand children as capable, rights-holding individuals.
When expectations around reflection, professionalism, and ethical practice are made explicit during induction, mentoring, and performance conversations, they become shared standards rather than assumptions.
Making reflective practice non-negotiable
Educators who grow are those who are invited into thinking, not compliance.
Reflective practice is strengthened when it becomes part of everyday conversation. Questions such as “What did the children show you today?”, “Where did you intentionally step in or step back?”, and “Which principle guided your decision?” encourage thinking and professional dialogue.
Educators who are committed will lean into these conversations. Those who are disengaged will become visible over time in ways that are fair, transparent, and grounded in practice.
Coaching rather than carrying
Experienced educators often become natural mentors. However, there is a difference between supporting growth and compensating for disengagement.
Time-bound coaching cycles, clear focus areas, observation, reflection, and review help ensure shared responsibility. Growth becomes visible. Lack of engagement becomes clear. This approach protects educators, leaders, and most importantly, children.
Let practice speak louder than pathway
When expectations focus on visible practice such as active engagement, intentional interactions, meaningful documentation, and advocacy for children, passionate educators are recognised regardless of qualification. At the same time, disengagement becomes difficult to hide behind titles or credentials.
This creates a culture where practice, not pathway, is what truly matters.
Children’s rights as the non-negotiable anchor
The most effective way to remove subjectivity from these conversations is to centre them on children’s rights.
Rather than framing concerns as personal preference, the focus shifts to children’s entitlement to responsive, engaged educators and meaningful learning relationships. Any educator who cannot align with this, regardless of qualification, should not remain in the role.
A hard but honest truth
One of the quieter truths of leadership in early childhood education is that you cannot make someone care.
What leaders and mentors can do is set clear expectations, provide genuine support, model strong practice, and advocate consistently for children. Recognising the limits of influence is not a failure. It is ethical leadership.
Re-centering what matters most
When practice is reflective, intentional, and child-centred, outcomes follow naturally. When educators understand why they do what they do, frameworks become guides for thinking rather than tools for compliance.
If the sector invested as much energy into mentoring, reflective cultures, and professional dispositions as it does into debating qualification pathways, children would benefit far more.
Perhaps the most important question is not how long someone studied, but how they show up for children every day.
That is the standard worth holding all of us to.
Janine Kelly
Artile Written by Janine Kelly