The Quality Improvement and Accreditation System (QIAS) aims to provide children in centre based child care throughout Australia with high quality care that best promotes their learning and development in the vital early years. The broad objective of the QIAS is to ensure that children in long day care have stimulating, positive experiences and interactions that foster all aspects of their development. It does this by defining quality child care and by providing a framework for measuring quality in a child care setting, The QIAS is a Commonwealth Government initiative linked to Child Care Benefit approval for centre based long day care. The QIAS is administered by the National Childcare Accreditation Council Inc.(NCAC). While there are voluntary accreditation systems for children's services in other countries, the Australian QIAS is unique on an international scale as it is the first quality assurance programme for child care services in the world to be linked to child care funding through legislation and to be funded and supported by the Federal Government. |
