INDIANAPOLIS — Access to quality childcare can be hard to find. The early learning advisory committee predicts Indiana will have a shortage of more than 8,200 childcare workers by 2030.
Ivy Tech Community College is the largest education and training provider of early childhood educators in Indiana.
The need for educators is growing, but those who work in the industry say there are several factors leading to the shortage.
"The biggest challenge I've seen is the diminishment in the workforce of the quantity and the quality of teachers,” Luke Miller, an early childhood educator, said. “The reason that is, is because we are in this post-pandemic world where the schools are hiring teachers that don't have qualifications or experience because they are desperate."
Miller has been working with kids for 17 years. He's getting his early childhood degree at Ivy Tech.
He says the investment in creating more pathways to education in the field is vital to solving the childcare crisis.
"Giving them the skills and knowledge to run a classroom improves the life of the child, it improves the quality of the workforce,” Miller said. “Then people want to stay in the workforce when they can manage it more."
Ivy Tech received over $21 million in grant funding from the Lilly Endowment. The money will be used to create early childhood micro-credentials and apprenticeships. The money will also help the school explore adding childcare on campus.
The Ivy Tech Foundation says the Lilly Endowment came to them and asked how funding could help grow the early childhood education workforce.
"This grant will actually allow us to double our effort, enrolling 2,000 early childhood students annually over the next three years,” Courtney Roberts, the President of the Ivy Tech Foundation, said.
The college is hopeful that more educated caretakers and teachers will lead to higher-quality care across the state.
"We need to teach them what high quality is,” Rose Wilson, the Early Childhood Education Program Chair at Ivy Tech Indianapolis, said. “One of the first things is having an educated staff and that does make for a high quality center. "
Ivy Tech is still working on a timeline for when these new educational options will be made available.
Their goal is to increase enrollment in its early childhood education programs by more than 100% by 2027.
