Australia ranks near the bottom of a list of OECD countries for childcare services, a new report finds.

Australia met just two of 10 benchmarks - accreditation for early learning staff and provision of subsidised childcare services for at least 25 per cent of children under three - set by UNICEF.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said the deficiencies would not be fixed overnight.

"You can't overcome more than a decade of neglect in a single day or in a single year," she said in an interview.

The Government had invested more than half a billion dollars in universal pre-school education and more than $100 million in new workforce development to help train early learning teachers.

UNICEF says countries, such as Australia, should be spending at least one per cent of their gross domestic product on childhood services.

Australia was spending less than half a per cent by failing to have a paid parental leave scheme, insufficient staff training and inadequate staff-to-children ratios.

Ms Gillard said the report was rightly critical of Australia's record, but she blamed the problems on the previous Howard government.

Sweden ranked number one in the world for childcare with ticks in every box. It was followed by Iceland. Denmark, Finland, France and Norway.

Australia ranked 22 of 24, ahead of Canada and Ireland but behind the US, UK and Mexico.

The report, titled The Child Care Transition, says poor-quality care had the potential for both immediate and long-term harm to children.

It warned that some nations provided childcare in an ad-hoc way with minimal assurances of quality.