Tuesday, 7 March 2023

Ministers statements: early childhood education

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep, Minister for Environment) (12:16): Our $14 billion investment into our kindergarten sector will not only be a game changer for Victorian children, it will also be a game changer for Victorian women. Right now the lack of access to child care takes over 26,000 women entirely out of the workforce in Victoria and costs our economy $1.5 billion per year in lost earnings alone.

More than half of women who want to do more paid work say child care is the main barrier preventing them. Our government’s nation-leading reforms will reduce this disparity for thousands of women. We have made kinder free, saving families up to $2500 per child per year and giving more than 28,000 Victorians, most of them women, more flexibility to return to work. We are establishing 50 new government-owned and affordable early learning centres in those communities that need them the most and establishing pre-prep, an extra year of 30 hours of play-based learning, which will also save families money and help more women to get back into the workplace.

Together these reforms are making early childhood education and care more affordable and more accessible, ensuring that women no longer have to weigh up the financial impacts of going back to work. Deloitte research shows that between 9100 and 14,200 additional primary carers are expected to participate in the labour force by 2032–33, with the total hours worked by primary carers to increase between 8 and 11 per cent. It is women who really stand to benefit, with 94 per cent of primary carers being women. These nation-leading reforms will benefit women today, tomorrow and into the future.