Thursday, 18 August 2022

Early childhood education

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (17:11): (6497) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep, and the action I seek is for the minister to update my community on the number of families who are likely to benefit from the Andrews Labor government’s free kinder policy. When it comes to investing in early childhood education, the reform that is happening for the youngest of Victorians and their growth and development, the Andrews Labor government has led the way. Of course we are delivering, to this very day, three-year-old kindergarten across our state—universal three-year-old kinder in every municipality, 79 local council areas now accessing this transformational policy—because we know impact of early childhood education has and the investment in three-year-old as well as four-year-old kinder will be substantial on the growth, learning and outcomes of our youngest Victorians.

It goes with the work that we are doing in infrastructure, the Building Blocks program, that is needed to deliver such a transformational reform, those 15 hours of three-year-old kinder, but we are taking that to the next level. And pre-prep is a really amazing policy, 30 hours of four-year-old kinder equivalent really setting up our youngest Victorians as they transition into primary school. As the Parliamentary Secretary for Schools I was able to do a report for the previous Minister for Education and former Deputy Premier, on the importance of the transition of our kids from early childhood to primary school and how critical kinder and early childhood education are. Then we think about the workforce. We need thousands more early childhood educators in the coming years. I think it is 6000 that we need. If anyone is listening—to the millions tuning in to the Victorian Parliament—we want the newest Victorians to be early childhood educators. Choose a career path that will really change the outcomes for our littlest Victorians. Choose early childhood education into the future.

So it is a really important policy area as we roll out three-year-old and four-year-old kinder and expand that into the future, but the free kinder program will save families $2500 per child per year. It is a substantial return-to-work policy for parents but particularly supporting women into the workforce as well, and it takes the pressure off Victorians in their cost of living—$2500 back in the pocket of Victorian families to make ends meet. So when it comes to early childhood education and supporting our youngest Victorians, the Andrews Labor government leads the way, and in cost of living and supporting our families in kinder the Andrews Labor government is delivering. I am keen to know, in the communities of Kingston and Greater Dandenong, how many families are likely to benefit from this revolutionary policy.