Quality Education and Care NT

All staff, volunteers, and students in early childhood education and care must complete mandatory national child safety training.

The training has been developed by the Australian Centre for Child Protection in partnership with the Queensland Government, on behalf of all Australian states and territories and the Australian Government.

The training is free and approved providers can access support to help staff to complete it.

This is a National Child Safety Reform initiative. All education ministers agreed to new mandatory national child safety training at a special purpose meeting in August 2025.

Mandatory child safety training applies to all individuals involved in providing education and care under the National Quality Framework, including long day care, family day care, OSHC, preschools, kindergartens, in home care and CCCFR services.

The training consists of:

Foundations of child safety

• Course 1: Understanding child safety
• Course 2: Understanding and identifying child abuse and neglect.

These 2 courses were released on 27 February 2026.

New - Advanced child safety

• Course 3: Creating child safe cultures through everyday practice
• Course 4: Responding to safeguarding concerns
• Course 5: Leading and governing child safety.

Courses 3 and 4 are available from 31 July 2026.

Course 5 is expected to be available from 30 September 2026.

Courses to be completed

* Staff required to complete advanced child safety training must do so within 6 months of course 5 being released (expected 30 September 2026). New starters after course 5 is released must complete the required training within 3 months of commencement.

How to register

Each participant must register to complete the training modules.

Follow the prompts to create your account on the Geccko registration.

If you already have your own Geccko account, log in and update your details.

If you use a shared Geccko account, you must re-register using a personal email address.

Find out more and get step-by-step support for Geccko, go to the Australian Government’s Department of Education website.

In 2025 education ministers agreed to a comprehensive package of reforms to strengthen child safety. It was agreed that ensuring child safety and wellbeing is a shared national priority.

Several significant reforms have already been introduced to strengthen child safety and oversight within education and care services.

These changes include:

• enhanced child protection requirements
• stricter reporting obligations
• stronger worker screening measures
• expanded regulatory authority powers
• improved management of digital technologies and devices
• the establishment of a National Early Childhood Worker Register.

You may have also heard about further changes to strengthen safety and quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC). In July 2026, education ministers agreed in critical reforms to further strengthen child safety in ECEC including:

• strengthening supervision practices
• increasing transparency for families
• improving whistleblower protections
• ensuring person with management and control remain fit and proper.
• Safer fencing and more.

Read more information about quality and safety on the Department of Education website.

It was agreed that all jurisdictions, including the NT will be actively regulating these restrictions. QECNT will support this process through discussions during service visits and phone contact.

We will ask to see your new ‘safe use of digital technologies and online environments’ policy and procedure and discuss with you how you are ensuring safe use of technology, including the restrictions on taking images of children with personal devices and utilising service issued devices only.

We understand that context is important in all legislative changes including these, and we are happy to answer any question you may have.

Contact the team to speak to an authorised officer on 08 8999 3561 or email qualityecnt.det@education.nt.gov.au.

On 1 January 2012, regulation of long day care, family day care, 3 year old kindergarten, preschools and outside school hours care services under the Education and Care Services (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2011 and the Education and Care Services National Regulations commenced in the NT.

QECNT continues to work with service providers to increase their knowledge and understanding of the regulatory requirements and support continuous improvement.

QECNT works closely with the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), the organisation responsible for ensuring the NQF is applied consistently across Australia.

The National Quality Framework (NQF) is a unified, national regulatory and quality assurance system for early childhood and school age education and care services. It was established in 2012 and applies to most long day care, family day care, kindergarten, preschool and outside schools hours care services.

This system:

• works to provide children with the best start in life
• promotes best practice, raises quality and drives continuous improvement in education and care services
• streamlines the administration and regulation of education and care services
• ensures services meet the needs of families
• provides parents with information about the quality of the services their children attend.

Last year, QECNT commenced ensuring all NT services are visited every year. QECNT is continuing to endeavour to visit all services across the NT throughout 2026.

QECNT visits services for a variety of reasons, including follow-up investigations, complaints, education and support, compliance monitoring, and assessment and rating which may be conducted as either full or partial assessments. Depending on individual circumstances, services may also receive additional visits.

QECNT will be conducting more unannounced visits. QECNT have the powers to visit a service at any time the service is in operation, and we know historically that visiting unannounced often provides a clearer indication of the quality and care that the children are receiving every day.

Authorised officers can be flexible during compliance and monitoring inspections and will arrange with the service to ensure minimal impact to the operations of the service.

In line with the NQF, all services should be operating in accordance with the regulations at all times. It is vital that services in the NT provide quality care that meets the NQF at all times, not just when you know that QECNT are planning a visit.

QECNT have been provided information relating to the closure of a number of registered training organisations (RTO’s) These RTO’s and relevant closures are made by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and relate to the validity of the qualifications. QECNT do not regulate qualifications directly, see the details on the ASQA webpage for more information, go to the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) website.

Now is the time for approved providers and services to ensure your educator’s qualifications are valid and on the ACECQA website.

QECNT, as the regulatory authority in the Northern Territory, is responsible for the administration of the NQF, which includes monitoring education and care services compliance with the Education and Care Services (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2011 and the Education and Care Services National Regulations.

The regulatory framework continue to guide all decisions-making. QECNT will always take a risk based, proportionate approach to regulatory actions in line with the framework. Voluntary compliance is always preferred, and we use only stronger enforcement tools when necessary. Infringement notices will only be issued where clearly warranted.

When non-compliance is identified, the regulatory authority will take appropriate enforcement action to address the risk to the health and safety of children and to mitigate the risk of the non-compliance reoccurring.

Enforcement actions may be published when non-compliance is particularly serious or high risk, or where there has been a pattern of repeated non-compliance.

Pursuant to section 270 of the national law and regulation 227 of the national regulations, the regulatory authority may publish information about enforcement actions taken under the national law including:

• a prosecution for an offence leading to a conviction or finding of guilt or a plea of guilt
• the acceptance by the regulatory authority of an enforceable undertaking
• the giving of a compliance notice
• the suspension or cancellation of a provider approval or service approval
• an amendment made to a provider approval or service approval for purposes of enforcement
• the giving of an emergency action notice under section 179 of the law.

Where a person is eligible to apply for an internal or external review of an enforcement action, information may be published after the end of the period for requesting a review, if no request for a review is made.

Families can also request to see a service’s record of compliance when choosing an early childhood education and care service for their child.

QECNT will begin operational use of infringement notices as part of the existing regulatory toolkit under the Education and Care Service National Law. Infringement introduction to the QECNT’s operational processes will not change our regulatory approach, rather it ensures we are using the full suite of tools available to support compliance and remain focused on child safety.

Our QECNT - regulation framework PDF (527.2 KB) details our approach to compliance and enforcement and the regulatory tools we use to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of children in education and care services.

All state and territory governments including the NT agreed to publish information about enforcement actions on ACECQA’s family focused website, Starting Blocks.

You can see the enforcement actions published by QECNT and all state and territory regulators on Starting Blocks. This includes enforcement action for the last 2 years, and the most recent visit to the service.

Find out more about the types of action, or see enforcement actions on the Starting Blocks website.

The National Early Childhood Worker Register enables regulatory authorities to identify who is working in education and care services and where they are employed. Approved providers are responsible for ensuring the worker register information is accurate and up to date.

The following people must be included on the worker register:

• educators
• early childhood teachers
• regular volunteers*
• students and trainees completing a placement as part of an approved education and care qualification
• non-educator staff
• nominated supervisors
• coordinators (centre-based and family day care)
• assistants
• temporary staff, including those employed through labour hire agencies.

Approved providers must update the register within 14 days when they:

• employ, engage, or appoint a worker
• make changes to workforce information.

*Volunteers who regularly or semi-regularly perform unpaid roles to support the operation of an education and care service must be included on the worker register. This also includes students undertaking unpaid supervised placements as part of an approved early childhood education and care qualification.

Parents attending with their child, one-off visitors, guest speakers, and high school work experience students who are not studying an approved qualification do not need to be added to the register. For more information regarding who is considered a volunteer please refer to adding volunteers into the National Early Childhood Worker Register information sheet.

Personal information held in the register is secure and can only be accessed by authorised users. Much of the information required for the register is already collected by approved providers as part of their existing staffing and educator record-keeping obligations. The worker register does not replace existing record-keeping requirements.

Records of national child safety training certificates of completion must be recorded in the national worker register.

The following resources provide valuable information to services, educators and authorised officers in understanding and implementing the National Quality Standard.

QECNT policies provide advice and information to authorised officers, providers, services, educators, parents and the wider community on the principles and standards that QECNT adhere to in implementing the National Quality Framework in the Northern Territory.

For further information or clarification, please contact Quality Education and Care Northern Territory on 08 8999 3561 or qualityecnt.det@nt.gov.au.

• QECNT Policy: Australian privacy principles privacy policy PDF (734.0 KB)
• QECNT Assessment and rating - policy PDF (315.3 KB)
• QECNT Assessment and rating procedures PDF (291.7 KB)
• First tier review - policy and guidelines PDF (333.6 KB)
• QECNT - Regulation framework PDF (527.2 KB)
• QECNT Complaints - Information sheet PDF (570.8 KB)
• QECNT Waiver - Policy and guidelines PDF (356.5 KB)
• QECNT Waivers - Information sheet PDF (133.5 KB)
• QECNT Infringement notices – operational procedure PDF (831.2 KB)