{"id":78,"date":"2018-10-13T18:34:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-13T18:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=78"},"modified":"2018-10-13T18:34:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-13T18:34:07","slug":"labor-will-extend-preschool-access-to-3-year-olds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/10\/13\/labor-will-extend-preschool-access-to-3-year-olds\/","title":{"rendered":"LABOR WILL EXTEND PRESCHOOL ACCESS TO 3 YEAR OLDS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Shorten Labor Government will introduce a new two year National Preschool and Kindy Program, guaranteeing around 700,000 Australian children a year will be able to access subsidised preschool.<br \/>\n<strong>This is the biggest ever investment in early childhood education in Australia.<\/strong><br \/>\nFor the first time, every three year old in Australia will be able to access 15 hours of subsidised early childhood education, so they can get the best start to learning.<br \/>\nLabor will also extend the current arrangement for four year olds accessing preschool \u2013 creating a quality, two-year program to support the most important years of a child\u2019s development, an investment of an additional $1.75 billion into early education.<br \/>\n90% of a child\u2019s brain development occurs in the first five years of life &#8211; an investment in early education is one of the smartest investments our country can make.<br \/>\n<strong>Labor\u2019s plan is good for children, good for parents, and good for the economy:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Children &#8211;<\/strong>\u00a0Studies have shown that children who access quality early education achieve better results in tests throughout their schooling. Early education is particularly vital in closing the disadvantage gap before a child starts school. Labor\u2019s plan will see around 340,000 three year olds and a similar number of four year olds able to access preschool every year.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Parents\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013\u00a0One of the biggest barriers to accessing early education is finance \u2013 expanding access will help with the cost of living, help parents balance work and family and help reduce the child care bill for families with children already in early education.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Economy \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0evidence shows that the return on investment in early childhood education is significant. A recent study from the EU showed that for every dollar spent on early childhood education for 3 year olds, $4 was returned to the economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Labor\u2019s universal access to preschool scheme for four year olds has laid the groundwork for this announcement \u2013 since the first agreement was signed by Labor in 2008, preschool enrolment for four year olds has increased from 77% to between 93-97%.<br \/>\nBut more needs to be done. Our global competitors have recognised the value of a two-year early childhood education program, and it\u2019s time Australia gets on board, before we fall further behind.<br \/>\nThe United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, Ireland and China have all expanded their early childhood education programs to include three year olds.<br \/>\nCurrently, Scott Morrison has failed to extend preschool funding for four year olds beyond next school year \u2013 after his child care changes cut early education from some of Australia\u2019s most vulnerable children.<br \/>\nThe Liberals see education as a cost \u2013 that\u2019s why they\u2019ve cut $14 billion from public schools and left preschool funding in limbo. Labor sees it as an investment in our collective future.<br \/>\nLabor will work in partnership with the states and territories to deliver this important reform, including in setting enrolment and attendance targets, particularly for Indigenous and vulnerable children.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve made tough and overdue decisions to rein in unfair tax concessions that predominantly benefit the wealthy \u2013 including negative gearing reform and dividend imputation reform \u2013 so we can fund the priorities that will make a fairer and more successful nation.<br \/>\nOnly Labor will give every child the early education opportunities they need for the best start in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Shorten Labor Government will introduce a new two year National Preschool and Kindy Program, guaranteeing around 700,000 Australian children a year will be able to access subsidised preschool. This is the biggest ever investment in early childhood education in Australia. For the first time, every three year old in Australia will be able to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/10\/13\/labor-will-extend-preschool-access-to-3-year-olds\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;LABOR WILL EXTEND PRESCHOOL ACCESS TO 3 YEAR OLDS&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}