How will your party support the delivery of early childhood education in non-government schools?
Labor’s $1.75 billion National Preschool and Kindy Program will commit permanent, ongoing funding to four-year-olds.
Labor will also extend the program to cover three-years-olds for the first time.
Through our policy, all three and four-year-olds will have access to subsidised quality early learning in the two years before formal schooling starts.
Labor will work with all relevant stakeholders including the states and territories and non-government sector to deliver the program. We are mindful that the program will be delivered across a range of contexts that vary from state to state. We are committed to ensuring all children can access preschool in every setting in every state and territory.
We are determined to ensure this policy benefits all three and four-year-olds in the non-government sector as well as government and community run preschools and kindies, long day care centres and school site-located early childhood centres which have become a feature of the Catholic school sector in recent years.
Parents and carers will be free to choose the setting that best suits their child’s needs.
Non-government schools must have the same rights as government schools to provide education services.
The Morrison Government will provide more than $440 million to states and territories for preschool in 2019 and over $450 m¡ll¡on in 2020, under the National Partnership on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education.
This also includes funding to develop and implement strategies to increase preschool attendance rates among disadvantaged and indigenous children.
The extension of the National Partnership will ensure almost 350,000 children in Australia have access to 1-5 hours of quality early learning a week, or 600 hours a year, in the year before school.
This extension takes our overall investment in preschool to $2.8 billion since elected.
The Greens will ensure universal early childhood education for 3 and 4 years olds, and extend the available hours of preschool from 15 to 24 per week. Our policy will make child care fee free for 80% – or four out of five – families in Australia. We will also abolish the activity test to access the childcare subsidy. To ensure access in areas of high First Nations populations and high levels of disadvantage, the Greens will allocate a proportion of the Community Child Care Fund (CCCF) for quality community-controlled and culturally safe integrated early years services. We will develop and implement a workforce strategy with the early learning sector and unions to achieve professional pay and better working conditions for educators and carers. The Greens will also provide grants worth $200m for centres in areas of high need to reduce waiting lists.
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