{"id":9176,"date":"2020-11-13T09:44:30","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T09:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=9176"},"modified":"2020-11-13T09:44:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T09:44:30","slug":"labor-calls-for-free-preschool-to-drive-economic-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/11\/13\/labor-calls-for-free-preschool-to-drive-economic-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor calls for free preschool to drive economic recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NSW Labor is urging the Government to make preschool free for a further 18 months to boost workforce participation and kickstart the State\u2019s economic recovery.<br \/>\nNSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay said free preschool should be included as one of the Government\u2019s key stimulus measures in the upcoming State budget: \u201cFamilies are struggling. Access to free preschool will ease the\u00a0pressure on household budgets so kids can stay\u00a0in vital early learning regardless of their parents\u2019 financial position.<br \/>\n\u201cIf the Government backs this initiative they\u2019ll have bipartisan support.\u00a0Economic recovery and jobs are the most important issues facing NSW,\u201d Ms McKay said.<br \/>\nThe Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Learning Jodie Harrison said it\u2019s vital the Government ensures no children fall behind as NSW endures one of the worst economic downturns since the Great depression.<br \/>\n\u201cIn the long-term, there\u2019s nothing more important than giving every child in NSW access to quality education. That starts before school. In this recession, with lots of families doing it tough financially, we want to make sure no children miss out.\u201d<br \/>\nThe benefits of early childhood education are significant and widespread:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are 5,500 early childhood education services in NSW including more than 750 pre-school services, and of the 400,000 children in services. 45,000 are in pre-school (more than 10%)<\/li>\n<li>Early childhood education provides a 1:2 Return on Investment (According to analysis undertaken by PwC for the Front Project ) &#8211; $2 of benefits flow to the economy for every $1 spent on early childhood education<\/li>\n<li>Closing the workforce participation gap could boost GDP by $60 billion over 20 years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NSW Labor is urging the Government to make preschool free for a further 18 months to boost workforce participation and kickstart the State\u2019s economic recovery. NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay said free preschool should be included as one of the Government\u2019s key stimulus measures in the upcoming State budget: \u201cFamilies are struggling. Access to free &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/11\/13\/labor-calls-for-free-preschool-to-drive-economic-recovery\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Labor calls for free preschool to drive economic recovery&#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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9176","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=9176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}