The Hodgman Government has listened to Tasmanians, and we will not be lowering the voluntary school starting age.
Our motivation at all times during this policy debate has been to improve education outcomes in Tasmania. It’s simply not good enough that some Tasmanian children have up to two years less education than other states, and no doubt part of the reason why our education results are not as good as they could be.
Instead, the Government has made a decision to provide earlier access to play based learning in a different way, through our Working Together for 3 Year Olds - targeted pre-school initiative which will provide the opportunity of an additional year of pre-school to Tasmanian children who are vulnerable or disadvantaged.
This will be offered, when children are 3, in partnership with the Early Childhood Education and Care sector (ECEC), and will provide free access to quality pre-school programs for eligible three year old children. It will commence in 2020.
The Government will fund access to 10 hours a week (400 hours a year) of quality early learning through an accredited service primarily in the ECEC sector, or in a school in some specific circumstances.
The initiative will receive funding of $10.5 million each year on top of the recurrent funding of $4.9 million for extra support in Prep including teacher assistants.
The Government will also keep its commitment to ensure Tasmanian Government Kindergartens are assessed against the National Quality Standards for Early Childhood Education and Care from 2020, and fund associated infrastructure requirements.
We have always said we would not implement earlier access to Prep or Kindergarten, until we fully understood the social and economic impacts on existing early childhood education and care providers. The implementation report, including analysis by KPMG and based on comprehensive consultation with the ECEC sector which I’m releasing today recommends this alternative approach.
Today's announcement shows that we are a government who listens, and makes decisions based on the best available evidence.
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