Earlier this week the Victorian Government announced it will invest up to $83.7 million over four years to support kindergartens to transition to the new educator-to-child ratios, designed to improve the quality of early childhood education and care across the country. The new funding also includes $7.9 million over two years to help vulnerable children who are eligible for extra support to access 3-year-old and 4-year-old early learning programs. This is an encouraging announcement and we’re currently reviewing how the funding will impact ECMS and our families. We’ll keep you updated as more details come to light.
ECMS continues to contribute on a wide range of hot topics in the policy arena such as universal access, ratio changes in 2016, cluster management policy, the safety net package for vulnerable and at risk children, family day care models and national public awareness campaigns. We value the opportunity to have a voice in these discussions as we continue to advocate for high quality, affordable, inclusive and accessible early childhood education and care for all families.
The new State Government has earmarked education as its flagship policy area in the recently announced budget. As part of its pledge to become the Education State, The Victorian Government will invest an extra $1.4 billion in funding for education for up to 18 year olds. ECMS is participating in the consultation and will be submitting a paper promoting the value and impact of early childhood education. I encourage families to consider attending one of the consultation meetings over the next month – register for an event here. In meetings with Minister Mikakos and senior departmental officials over the past weeks, I was pleased to hear that quality, educational outcomes for children, and access/inclusion of disadvantaged children in early education programs are priorities. This also gives us confidence to push forward with our goals for the future.
On Friday 12 June we held the last of our round of Federal MP forums regarding the Families Package, hosting Kevin Andrews, MP at Doncaster Park Kindergarten. Parents provided some great feedback to the Minister on the Government’s Childcare and Early Learning Policy, in particular the need to do more for vulnerable children and continue to support universal access. I’ve been encouraging the visiting MPs to share the valuable insights they’ve gained from these forums with their colleagues in Parliament.
I hope you enjoy some quality time with your family and friends over the term break.
Warm regards,
Bernie
