Kerri-Anne O’Donnell always wanted to work with children. When she was a teenager, she says, she had idols in the early childhood profession instead of the pop world. But after almost 50 years in the job, the veteran educator says she is “old and crabby, jaded and almost defeated”.

O’Donnell started working in early childhood education at 19, as a volunteer at the local preschool. She became a full-time educator in long day care and climbed the ranks while raising her own two children, eventually becoming responsible for running the service.

To have stayed in the sector as long as she has is an “aberration, not the norm,” she says. “There are a few of us out there. We are passionate and frankly probably insane.”

She has been physically and verbally assaulted by children, whose families, she believes, see her as an expensive babysitter.

Last month, the government announced a 15% pay rise for a historically undervalued sector. But it’s less than the 25% the unions had originally called for, and according to O’Donnell, just one piece of a broader overhaul of the system that is desperately needed. Educators Guardian Australia spoke to said they felt underappreciated and overworked and some had even been physically assaulted by children.

Many have left the profession, including Elena Petrou, who worked as an educator for 10 years and is currently completing her PhD in early childhood education. She says that as passionate as she is, passion doesn’t pay the bills.

“The work doesn’t match up with pay and benefits … there’s an incredible amount of documentation [required by educators] and it’s one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country.”

She also says she was told she could be fired after campaigning for a pay rise.

And there are problems with training standards and staff retention, according to both O’Donnell and Petrou.

Petrou, for example, was not trained to care for children with challenging behaviours, which can lead to burnout among educators and children being expelled. And since staff are key secondary attachment figures for kids, a high turnover rate can severely impact children’s wellbeing and development.

She says it’s “a joke” that educators only get 10 paid sick days a year as they are constantly getting sick due to working with large amounts of kids and are forced to take unpaid time off so they don’t infect children and other staff.

Petrou also says the opt-in nature of the pay increase – centres have to agree to cap their fee increases in order to get the government funding for the worker pay rises – puts “too much trust” in profit-fuelled centres.

She believes a 15% pay rise will be insufficient to attract teachers to the profession, but says measures including more mental health support, paid annual and sick leave and paid professional development might.

Carolyn Smith, the early education director at United Workers Union, describes the pay rise as a huge first step but not the last one.

The 15% pay rise is intended to be an interim pay increase, Smith says, and just one measure within a broader suite of reforms including inquiries from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Productivity Commission.

“The government certainly has been really clear that they want to lift the wages of early education workers … the campaign for 25% is not over,” says Smith.

She draws similarities between the process and the wage increase for aged care workers, noting that the total wage rise of 28% for the latter was not an immediate upfront payment.

But some educators, including those working in family day care and some preschools, won’t receive the pay rise. One of these is Lauren, who has worked as an educator for nine months in northern NSW.

“Without a pay rise or more recognition from my employer, I see myself leaving the profession by the end of the year,” she says.

Lauren, who is diploma-qualified, is paid $30 an hour. She says she works with trainees who are paid $20 an hour and trainees who “work just as hard as me” who are paid $12 an hour.

“I’m not sure how people can pay mortgages with that amount.”

She says there are so few educators that her centre is only “just” in the legal child-to-educator ratio and she often has to stay back because staffing numbers aren’t correct.

“I feel like I’m not able to do my job well enough because of the low staff numbers and minimal chances to do admin and programming.”

“If we are doing the same job we should get the same pay … I’m not sure why [the pay rise] has happened the way it has,” she says, referring to the opt-in nature of the deal.

Jason, an ex-educator based near Gosford, says the 15% increase was nowhere near enough to entice teachers to stay in the profession. He has raised his concerns surrounding his pay rise with his federal MP but says her responses were vague and dismissive.

“I was only ever told the government highly valued the contributions of early childhood workers.”

O’Donnell agrees: “15% is not enough to entice a workforce or to keep it in place,” she says. “We don’t do this for the money. 25%, however, may have helped enormously.”