National Quality Framework

​​​The National Quality Framework (NQF) commenced in Queensland on 1 January 2012. The NQF comprises the Education and Care Services National Law (National Law), the Education and Care Services National Regulations (National Regulations) and the National Quality Standard (the NQS). The NQF applies to most education and care services including long day care centres, outside school hours care, family day care and kindergartens.​

The NQF aims to:

• ensure the safety, health and wellbeing of children attending education and care services
• improve educational and developmental outcomes for children attending education and care services
• promote continuous improvement in the provision of quality education and care services.
  

Structure of the National Quality Framework

The NQF includes:

• The National Law—The NQF operates under a nationally applied law system comprising the Education and Care Services National Law and the Education and Care Services National Regulations.
• The National Regulations—The Education and Care Services National Regulations support the National Law by providing detail on a range of operational requirements for an education and care service.

The National Regulations include:

• The National Quality Standard (NQS) which includes 7 quality areas that form the basis of ratings and assessment

• Operational requirements for services, including:
• approved​ learning frameworks​
• staffing arrangements and qualifications
• the process for the rating and assessment of services against the NQS
• physical environment.​
  

National consistency

The Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) is the National Authority overseeing the NQF in education and care services in Australia.

Regulatory authorities

Each state and territory has a regulatory authority, which implements the functions of approvals, monitoring and compliance and quality assessment under the NQF.

In Queensland, the Chief Executive of the Department of Education is the regulatory authority and is responsible for:

• assessing applications relating to provider and service approvals, amendments and waivers and notifications relating to changes to providers and services, transfers of service approvals and the occurrence of serious incidents and complaints alleging breaches of the law, amongst other matters.
• assessing and rating the quality of services
• monitoring and enforcing compliance with the legislation.
  

Read regulating for quality, Queensland’s risk-based approach to regulating early childhood education and care to learn how the department regulates to reduce risk to children’s safety, drive voluntary service compliance and promote continuous quality improvement.

Learn more about what we do and the role of the department. 

Resources and tools

• Templates, forms and resources—​Access resources, videos, forms and fact sheets on the National Quality Framework.
• The Notification Decision Tree (NDT)​ can assist in deciding whether a notification is required and the timeframe in which that notification should be made.

Stay up to date

• Subscribe to the National Quality Framework e-bulletin to keep updated on important matters related to the NQF.
• Subscribe to the A to Z of Early Childhood e-newsletter to keep updated on information about early childhood education and care reforms in Queensland.