Premier Daniel Andrews announced $26 million towards early childhood education on Thursday, ahead of the reopening of all Victorian early childhood services next month.
The package will allow community-based, local government and school providers offering sessional programs to be eligible for about $500 per enrolment to provide children with access to a free 15-hour program each week.
More than 5000 vulnerable children will also be eligible to receive five extra hours of kinder per week, to help them catch up on missed or disrupted learning.
Kialla Children's Centre coordinator Nicole Short said the announcement brought certainty in what had been an uncertain year.
“As an early childhood service we have had a very unusual year and have not really known what is going to happen next with our programs, so we have found ourselves like many other businesses trying to navigate our way through,” Ms Short said.
“We believe that this funding will be of benefit to all our preschool families, to support them during this term financially whilst our educators support children in their final term of kinder and in readiness for school next year.
“We want to see all of our kinder children back in Term 4 as the final term is so very important to their development for moving to the next stage.
“We are a community-based service so this funding will also support our not-for-profit centre through this period, so it is very much welcomed,” she said.
The package will also provide funding for teachers to visit kinders as four-year-old kinder kids are unable to traditionally head to school and spend time getting used to their future new environment.
Mr Andrews said it had been a tough year for all, including some of the youngest Victorians.
“We’ll give some extra help to families and childhood services as our kinder kids (go) back on-site and we take careful steps towards COVID normal,” Mr Andrews said.
“We know that starting school is a huge milestone.
“Victorian families can rest assured our dedicated early childhood and school teachers are working together to support Victorian children transition from kinder to prep,” he said.
The government will also provide tailored professional learning for early childhood and school staff and develop best practice tools for Prep teachers to support play-based and differentiated learning for children at the start of 2021.
Outreach supports will also be set up to re-engage children from Aboriginal and cultural and linguistically diverse communities with their learning, while kindergarten teachers will be provided additional hours to liaise with schools to support children with disabilities in their transition next year.
Extra cleaning grants will be provided to early childhood services and assist with the cost of an infectious clean if they are directed to close due to confirmed cases of coronavirus.
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