Free three-year-old kindergarten rollout begins in Ballarat

It is the first year the funded second year of kindergarten is available to families in Ballarat, as part of a 10-year Victorian Government early education reform.

Hepburn Shire was one of the leaders in the funded kindergarten roll-out, now entering its second year of a full 15-hours of funded kindergarten for three-year-olds.

Eureka Community Kindergarten Association chief executive Jo Geurts said children in Hepburn Shire now starting their second year of kindergarten had 'come along in leaps and bounds'.

"Their confidence, their social skills, all of the areas of child development is very much enhanced through having that extra time in a kindergarten program with a bachelor trained early childhood teacher," she said.

Families in Moorabool, Golden Plains and Pyrenees Shires are also able to access five-hours of funded three-year-old kindergarten this year.

All local government areas around Victoria will scale up to the full 15-hour program by 2029 as part of the staggered reform.

Ms Geurts said the timing on increases to the full program would depend on each centre's capacity with infrastructure and staffing.

"We know two years of kindergarten is the minimum children need to set them up for the best start to their schooling and the rest of their education," she said.

"It is really important for us. We want to get to the 15 hours of kindergarten for two years as soon as we are able to.

"We will be planning for the next few years to try to have every single one of our services offering 15 hours funded."

Ms Geurts said it was fantastic the government supported the 'enormous' and 'needed' step forward to 15-hours for three-year-olds.

"It has been something the sector has been advocating for for many many years.

"It is a time where their brains are developing at the most rapid stage of their life."

Research shows children who attend two years of quality kindergarten have better cognitive and social skills when they start school, higher exam scores and better social and emotional outcomes at age 16.

They are also more likely to do higher academic study.

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Parents have been required to pay all three-year-old kindergarten fees in the past, which Ms Geurts said was a barrier, particularly for vulnerable families.

Ms Geurts said there had been a strong uptake of parents enrolling their children in the funded three-year-old kindergarten places.

"I think the number of enrolments will continue to increase over the next few years and it will become the norm that kindergarten is for two years," she said.

Programs for disadvantaged families will continue, with free kindergarten for families with a health care or pension card and a separate program which gives all vulnerable children free access to 15 hours a week.

Ms Geurts said it had been a long and 'well-planned' process to ensure ECKA had sufficient staff to deliver the expanded programs.

She said the organisation had supported staff to upskill and gain higher qualifications and she expected more skilled people to come into the workforce in the next few years after taking up free study options.

"It can't come soon enough for us," she said.

"With the strategies with the free TAFE courses, scholarships for early childhood bachelor degrees and other supports in place, we are hoping the workforce shortages will be resolved in the coming years."

Ms Geurts said like all sectors, COVID would create staffing challenges when children returned to classes.

"We will have real challenges when our centres have COVID exposure in finding enough relief staff to keep our services open if staff are affected," she said.

"We will be bound to the regulations and the requirement to maintain the minimum educator to child ratios.

"Unfortunately there may be times where we may need to close services for a short period if there is no staff and no way to keep them open. We will do everything we can to minimize that occurring.

"Our kinders are only getting started this week and it is a little bit unknown how badly this might affect us and might affect staffing."

ECKA is understood to be the largest provider of early childhood education in the region operating 28 centres.

Children will attend interviews with teachers and small group inductions this week before classes officially begin on Monday.

Ms Geurts encouraged families who haven't yet enrolled to get in touch with City of Ballarat, which is the central kinder registration, or with ECKA head office.

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