F O U N D E R
Jae Fraser
Founder, The Scholars Group. Founder and Approved Provider, Little Scholars School of Early Learning
He ran the largest childcare operator in the country, then left to buy a run-down centre.
T H E S H O R T V E R S I O N
Jae Fraser began his career as an early childhood educator working directly with children. He progressed through campus management to senior operations roles across Australia and Singapore, running Australia’s largest publicly listed childcare provider.
He is a qualified early childhood teacher, and completed that qualification while running operations at that scale.
He left that role in 2014 to open his own campus. Little Scholars started at Yatala in October 2014. It is now 17 campuses, and Jae’s name is on the service approval for every one of them.
From one campus
October 2014
1 campusYatala. A run-down centre he bought after leaving the largest operator in the country.
2014
1st clientThe first provider signed a management agreement. That service is still under management.
Today
17 & 30Seventeen campuses of his own. Thirty early learning services managed for other approved providers.
Once you have watched it from the inside, you cannot unsee it.
Why he left
Decisions that start out being about children get reshaped on the way down.
Running the largest operator in the country gave Jae the sector from both ends. He knew what good practice looked like in a room, because he had done the job. He could also see, from the most senior position in the largest operator in the country, how what arrives in the room ends up being something else.
It is structural rather than deliberate. It happens through a long series of individually reasonable compromises.
For an approved provider considering a management agreement, that history is the relevant part. The Scholars Group was built by someone who has run services at corporate scale and decided to do it differently, not by someone who has only ever advised.
In his words
Four things seventeen campuses taught him.
Thirteen to seventeen was harder than four to thirteen
The systems that carried us to thirteen stopped carrying it, quietly. Nothing broke. It just got worse at everything.
Hiring the Centre Manager is the decision everything rests on
Everything else is downstream of it. I have got this wrong, and it costs a year.
Retention is the only number a marketing budget cannot buy
Educator retention and family retention are the same number, and neither of them responds to advertising.
You cannot delegate the licence
You can delegate almost everything else. Not that.
Recognition
Judged on people and culture, not on scale.
Courier Mail Top 40 Under 40
Recognised among Queensland’s leading business figures under forty.
Telstra Business Awards
Queensland finalist, from more than 21,000 applications nationally.
EY Entrepreneur of the Year
Northern Region. The judges cited his advocacy for people and culture in a sector where that is not always the differentiator.
In the media
He answers the phone when the sector needs someone to.
Jae is a regular commentator on early childhood education and has appeared on Sunrise and across national news. He is the public spokesperson for Little Scholars and speaks on sector policy, workforce and the realities of running services.
When a journalist needs someone who actually operates services rather than someone representing a peak body, he takes the call. That matters to the sector, and it is part of why providers know who we are before they contact us.
Beyond the business
An executive of Australian Childcare Alliance Queensland.
Jae is a co-founder of The Fraser Foundation, a charitable trust supporting early childhood educators through scholarships, grants and professional development.
He sits on the executive of Australian Childcare Alliance Queensland, the peak body representing private providers in the state.