The government's $9 billion Best Start, Best Life program will be a 10-year project building to provide a universal 30 hours of free 'pre-prep' each week delivered through kinders and long day care centres, with 50 new government-operated childcare centres to be built in areas poorly serviced by existing providers.

From next year three and four year old kinder will be free across the state, saving families up to $2500 a year.

Eureka Community Kindergarten Association chief executive Jo Geurts said the overhaul was fantastic news and the fee relief would have a massive impact for struggling families and services.

"We know the higher dosage of good quality education before children start school builds all the foundation they need for success in their learning. There's a lot of research being done, particularly overseas, ... to show investment in early childhood education, in play-based education before they start school, is absolutely needed and very welcome."

More than 90 per cent of Victorian children access a kinder program but it is often the most disadvantaged who miss out.

Ms Geurts said she was seeing more families struggling to pay their kinder fees.

"We have so many parents this year struggling to pay kinder fees which are around $2000 a year coming off the COVID strategy in place last year when parents were able to send their four-year-olds free last year, but this year it has reverted back to paying fees and we know a lot of families out there are really doing it tough . We are finding it very hard to collect the fees we need to operate our facilities and it's not the parents' fault," she said.

Premier Daniel Andrews said the changes would also allow more parents back in to the workforce, particularly women, as lack of access to childcare takes almost 26,600 women out of the workforce costing the economy $1.5 billion per year in lost earnings.

"These massive reforms are about setting our kids up for the future and investing in women - who for far too long have had to do far too much."

"These are big changes, but they just make sense - giving our kids the very best start in life and delivering early education and care that actually works for families."

While childcare centres and kinders struggle currently to fill vacant positions, Federation University executive dean of the Institute of Education, Arts and Community Claire McLaughlan said current teacher survey data suggested government scholarships and incentives to train as early childhood education teachers were working and would ensure sufficient numbers to support the new program.

"This new initiative will of course require more ECE teachers, so it's likely that the investment in recruiting new teachers will need to continue and potentially expand," she said.

Ms Geurts was also confident there would be enough staff for the expanded program.

"(Staff shortages) will continue to be a challenge but I'm always optimistic and I believe our workforce is growing. Certainly many of our current staff members are upgrading their qualifications to become bachelor-trained kinder teachers so we are working on our internal workforce ... while at the same time there's a lot of investment and encouragement now for people to look at early childhood education or teaching as a career."

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But she acknowledged more needed to be done about pay rates in the sector to help make it attractive.

Australian Education Union Victorian Branch President Meredith Peace described the proposed changes to early childhood education as a fundamental improvement to Victoria's public education system.

"Our members have been campaigning for fully government funded and expanded preschool for decades. The investment in additional preschool hours, free kindergarten and new early learning centres to be built on school sites will improve Victoria's already nation-leading early learning system.

"All the evidence shows that children who attend at least two years of preschool achieve better learning outcomes at school, stay at school longer, are more likely to attend TAFE and university, and participate in the workforce," Ms Peace said.

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