Introduction

If you manage a childcare centre in Australia and have not yet heard of Geccko, you need to read this article before 27 August 2026.

Geccko is the Australian Government's online learning platform for the early childhood education and care sector. As of 27 February 2026, it became the only platform through which mandatory national child safety training can be completed. Training delivered through any other provider or platform does not meet the legal requirement.

Every person working or volunteering at an NQF-regulated ECEC service in Australia must complete the Geccko Foundation training by 27 August 2026. That deadline is now seven weeks away. Services whose existing staff have not yet started, or have not yet finished, are running out of time.

This post explains exactly what the Geccko training is, who must complete it, what the deadlines are, what happens when new staff join after the transition period closes, and what approved providers must do to meet their obligations under the 2026 National Law amendments.

What is Geccko?

Geccko is the Australian Government Department of Education's online learning platform for the ECEC sector. It was already used by the sector for Family Assistance Law training before 2026. Following the national child safety reforms, it became the mandatory delivery platform for national child safety training.

The training is available only through Geccko. Child safety training delivered through other platforms or providers does not meet the mandatory requirement.

The name Geccko stands for Get Early Childhood Compliance Knowledge Online. The training has been developed by the Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP) in partnership with the Queensland Government, on behalf of all Australian states and territories and the Australian Government.

The training is free. There is no cost to the educator or to the provider.

The two components: Foundation and Advanced training

The national child safety training on Geccko has two components.

Foundation training consists of two courses that must be completed in order: Course 1 must be completed before Course 2 unlocks. After completing both courses of foundation training, you can download a completion certificate from Geccko. Providers should ask staff to share their certificate as evidence of completion. Each certificate includes a unique certificate number.

Foundation training covers creating a child safe culture, developing child safe policies and procedures, expectations for staff conduct, child protection reporting obligations, children's rights, and harm prevention.

Advanced training was not available at the commencement of the mandate. Advanced modules will be available in July 2026. Certain people must also complete advanced training. Approved providers should monitor the Department of Education's Geccko page for the Advanced module release and details of who is required to complete it.

Who must complete the Geccko Foundation training?

National child safety training in Geccko is mandatory for everybody working or volunteering in an early childhood education and care (ECEC) service regulated under the National Quality Framework (NQF).

This is an intentionally broad scope. The requirement applies to:

• Nominated supervisors and persons with management or control
• Persons in day-to-day charge
• All educators, regardless of qualification level or role
• Family day care educators and coordinators
• People whose role supports the operation of the service, even if they do not have direct contact with children
• Regular and semi-regular volunteers, including students completing placements and studying an approved education and care qualification

The requirement is not limited to those who work directly with children. Administrative staff, cooks, and others whose roles support the operation of the service are included. This catches many providers off guard: the assumption that only educators need to complete the training is incorrect.

From 1 July 2026, the training is also mandatory for In Home Care and Community Child Care Fund Restricted services that are not regulated under the NQF.

The deadlines: what applies when

There are two distinct deadline frameworks, depending on when a person is employed or engaged at the service.

For all existing staff (employed before 14 August 2026):

All existing staff must complete foundation training by 27 August 2026. This is the six-month transition period from the 27 February 2026 commencement date. There are no extensions and no grace period beyond this date.

For staff entering the sector from 14 August 2026:

Following this date, new staff must complete the Foundation training modules within 14 days of being employed, engaged or appointed at the service or before they start working directly with children at the service, whichever is earlier.

This means a new casual educator who commences work at a service on 20 August 2026 must have completed Foundation training before they start, or within 14 days of being engaged, whichever is earlier. For educators who will work directly with children, completing the training before the first shift is the safer interpretation.

Ongoing renewal requirement:

All staff must recomplete the foundation training every 2 years. This is not a one-off obligation. Providers will need systems in place to track when each staff member's Geccko training was completed and when it is due for renewal.

How to register and complete the training

Following the introduction of national child safety training in 2026, shared accounts are no longer permitted. All users must have an individual Geccko account using a personal email.

This is a significant change from how some services used Geccko previously for Family Assistance Law training. Any shared account must be dissolved and replaced with individual accounts.

The registration and completion process is:

1. Go to the Geccko registration page and create an individual account using a personal email address.
2. Log in, select Courses from the home page, and enrol in the national child safety training.
3. Complete the two foundation courses in order: Course 1 must be completed before Course 2 unlocks.
4. Download the completion certificate from Geccko once both courses are finished. Provide this to your employer.

You do not need to complete the training in one sitting. You can pause, save your progress and return at any time. Learners who wish to take their time to progress through the training should take care not to leave the training open and unused for long periods, as this risks losing progress.

What approved providers must do

Under the 2026 National Law amendments, approved providers are not passive observers of staff training completion. They have active obligations.

Approved providers must ensure nominated supervisors, staff members and volunteers, including students, at the service complete mandatory national child safety training.

In practical terms, this means:

Tracking completion across the workforce. Every person covered by the requirement must have completed Foundation training by 27 August 2026. Providers need to know who has completed it, when, and what their certificate number is. For a service with 15 to 25 educators plus volunteers and students, this is a non-trivial tracking exercise.

Collecting completion certificates. Providers should ask staff to share their completion certificate as evidence of completion. These must be held on file and available if an authorised officer requests evidence during an inspection or assessment and rating visit.

Ensuring individual accounts. Any educator or volunteer who previously used a shared Geccko account must create their own individual account before completing the training. Completion logged on a shared account does not meet the requirement.

Planning for the Advanced module. With Advanced training expected from July 2026, providers should monitor who will be required to complete it and plan accordingly. The Advanced module is expected to have its own deadline framework.

Building a two-year renewal tracking system. The Foundation training must be recompleted every two years. This is a new compliance obligation that needs to be captured in the provider's workforce management processes now, not when the first renewals fall due.

Supporting staff to complete the training during work hours. Child Care Subsidy approved providers may close services early to support staff to complete the training. Wage subsidy grants are also available, prioritising small to medium providers with up to 25 services. These supports acknowledge that staff cannot reasonably be expected to complete mandatory work-related training entirely in their own time.

Victoria: an additional obligation

Providers operating in Victoria have an obligation beyond the national Geccko training.

Certain staff, students and volunteers who work in NQF-regulated ECEC services in Victoria must also complete Victoria's child protection training module, EC PROTECT, by 27 August 2026, and then every 12 months.

The EC PROTECT module is a separate, annual requirement for Victorian services. It applies to nominated supervisors and certain other roles. Staff and volunteers, including students, who do not work directly with children will meet their child protection training requirement by completing the national child safety training (Foundation modules). They are not required to complete EC PROTECT.

Victorian providers need to ensure compliance with both requirements by 27 August 2026.

What happens if staff do not complete by the deadline?

The 2026 National Law amendments made mandatory national child safety training a legal obligation, not a recommendation. Operating a service where staff have not met the training requirement after the deadline exposes the approved provider to regulatory action.

An authorised officer conducting an unannounced visit or an assessment and rating visit from 28 August 2026 onwards will be able to request completion certificates as evidence of compliance. A service that cannot produce them has a compliance gap that affects Quality Area 4 (Staffing Arrangements) and Quality Area 2 (Children's Health and Safety) under the NQS.

Under the strengthened enforcement environment of 2026, with unannounced spot checks ongoing since November 2025 and maximum penalties tripled under the National Law amendments, a training compliance gap is not a minor administrative issue. It is a recordable breach.

How QuickCare supports training compliance

Tracking Geccko training completion across an entire workforce, ensuring every certificate is collected, and managing the two-year renewal cycle are exactly the kind of compliance obligations that fall through the cracks in manual systems.

QuickCare's real-time compliance platform is built to manage credential and training records continuously, not periodically. As Geccko training completion becomes part of the standard compliance picture for Australian ECEC providers, tracking it alongside WWCC status, First Aid currency, CPR renewal, and qualification records in a single dashboard is the most practical way to ensure nothing is missed.

Book a demo at quickcarehr.com to see how QuickCare manages compliance obligations like the Geccko training requirement as part of its continuous workforce monitoring.