Licensing criteria for hospital-based ECE services

Section 10 of the Education and Training Act 2020(external link) defines hospital-based education and care service as the provision of education or care to 3 or more children under the age of 6 who are receiving hospital care.

ECE services operating from hospital premises that provide education and care to siblings of patients or children of hospital staff or patients are centre-based ECE services, not hospital-based ECE services.

Hospital-based services are licensed in accordance with the Education and Training Act 2020 under the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008(external link), which prescribe minimum standards that each licensed service must meet. Licensing criteria are used to assess how the services meet the minimum standards required by the regulations.

For each criterion there is guidance to help services meet the required standards.

The publication of the criteria on its own can be downloaded as a PDF [PDF, 1.2 MB] and printed.

The licensing criteria were last updated in September 2022.

GMA12 Availability of documentation

  • Criteria
    • Criteria

      Governance, management and administration criterion 12

      Required documentation is made available as appropriate to parents and Government officials having right of entry to the service under Section 626 of the Education and Training Act 2020(external link).

      Rationale/Intent:

      This criterion ensures records are made available, as required, which supports the accountability of service providers to the community and government.

  • Guidance
    • Guidance

      Any examples in the guidance are provided as a starting point to show how services can meet (or exceed) the requirement. Services may choose to use other approaches better suited to their needs as long as they comply with the criteria.

      Services need to ensure the required documentation as outlined in the Governance, Management and Administration criteria is made available when required.

      Any historic documentation stored off-site needs to be easily retrievable when required.