Thrive by Five: helping deliver a universal early learning system
The Minderoo Foundation’s Thrive by Five initiative is led by philanthropist Nicola Forrest and former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill. Its mission – to ensure every child has the best possible start to life – led it to launch a major advocacy campaign with Essential’s assistance, to realise a universal, affordable and high-quality early learning system.
Australia’s early childhood system was in need of significant reform. Childcare and preschool was prohibitively expensive with long waitlists, and many families struggled to even get a place. With so many children missing out on the cognitive and social benefits, 22% of Australian children were arriving at school developmentally vulnerable. At the same time, the inability to access and afford childcare was keeping many parents, usually women, at home when they wanted to return to work. Early childhood educators were also facing challenges, with low pay and a lack of recognition of their skills.
Minderoo and Essential knew this was not going to be a simple campaign with a singular goal. The responsibility for early childhood spans all tiers of government – federal, state/territory and local – often across multiple ministries. Early childhood policy was disconnected and incoherent. Thrive By Five was launched to push for coordinated reforms to bring about a universal, high-quality, accessible and affordable early childhood system.
Since 2020 Thrive by Five has established and nurtured an alliance of more than 100 diverse organisations and more than 100,000 supporters – a powerful demonstration of the salience of the issue to the voting public. Currently, the campaign achieves almost 15,000 media hits per year, and has a yearly organic social media reach of around 8 million. Essential also supports the campaign with event management, video production, graphic design and ad buying – with messaging and audience strategy informed by Essential Research.
While this is an enormous generation reform with more work to do, Thrive by Five has achieved significant wins. Federal Labor made early childhood education a key pillar of its 2022 election policy, significantly increasing the childcare subsidy once elected. Since 2020 there have been more than $70 billion in new funding announcements for early learning across federal, state and territory governments, including the introduction of free kinder in NSW and Victoria. Minderoo’s campaign is shifting the dial on the way decision-makers and the public think about early childhood education in Australia – from mere child minding, to a vital part of the education system that contributes to the economy, advances gender equality and can make or break family budgets during a cost-of-living crisis.
