Mentoring program for scholarship holders within the NSW Department of Education’s early childhood education scholarship programs

This final report outlines the key findings of the Mentoring Program for Scholarship Holders within the NSW Department of Education’s (the Department) Aboriginal and Early Childhood Education Scholarship Programs (Mentoring Program) that was delivered in 2022. The primary purpose of this project was to design, deliver and evaluate an effective mentoring program for scholarship holders within the NSW Department of Education’s Aboriginal and Early Childhood Education Scholarship Programs. The project aligned with the NSW Department of Education’s Early Childhood Education Workforce Strategy 2018-2022. Specifically, it targets,

Area 1: “Promote the role of early childhood educators and teachers as a critical part of a child’s educational journey, and early childhood education as an attractive and meaningful career” (p.6) and
Area 2: “Support the workforce to obtain qualifications and experience to prepare them for the workplace” (p.8). 

This project also aligned with the Aboriginal Children’s Early Childhood Education Strategy 2021-2025, 
Child Goal 3: “build the diversity of the workforce and create culturally safe learning environments by ensuring growth in the number of Aboriginal educators and teachers” (p.7) and
Family and Kinship Goal 2: “ensure our ECE sector has culturally safe services and a culturally competent workforce” (p.8).

The project was designed, implemented, and evaluated by a Project Leadership Team comprising four early childhood academics: Dr Rebecca Andrews, Professor Manjula Waniganayake, Associate Professor Fay Hadley and Associate Professor Iain Hay, within the Macquarie School of Education and Dr Leanne Holt, Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous Strategy Macquarie University, who acted as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander cultural advisor.

Additionally, the Leadership Team worked with a Project Steering Committee. This committee was established to ensure the Mentoring Program content and pedagogy were nuanced within the scholar mentees’ backgrounds for it to be effective and relevant for them. We achieved this through ongoing consultation and collaboration with the Project Steering committee who comprised Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, and/or representatives with experience and/or expertise in university first year experience, transition to the profession, and/or living in regional and remote areas and/or living with disability.