Page 5696 - Week 15 - Thursday, 10 December 2009
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child and family centres, another Labor initiative, that have been helping ACT families for some years in Tuggeranong and Gungahlin, and soon in west Belconnen.
The early childhood schools are crucial because they reduce the number of transition points that a child faces in its early years of schooling. They take a community and family-based approach and provide a range of early intervention programs, including some targeted Koori preschool classes. I have to say that it is a pity that the Liberal Party showed that they do not support these schools and these new initiatives by voting against them in the budget.
In May we signed an agreement with the commonwealth for universal access to early childhood education. This is accompanied by $13 million of commonwealth funding and it is our aim to ensure universal access to early childhood education and that a move from 12 to 15 hours of free preschool education for all children in the year prior to formal schooling is in place in the ACT by the city’s centenary in 2013.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Hunter?
MS HUNTER: Yes, Mr Speaker. Minister, you have just mentioned the extended hours of preschool and you also mentioned it on ABC radio this morning. Is the level of funding that is being applied across the ACT government and Catholic providers the same level of funding that will be provided to community-based preschools?
MR BARR: The national partnership with the commonwealth involves a staged rollout of the increase in hours from 12 to 15, focusing initially on areas of highest vulnerability within our community. Hence we have targeted the initial rollout in the 15 hours commenced in the four early childhood schools in 2009. There is then a program to extend that across all government preschools through 2010, 2011 and 2012. We will of course, with the available funding, look to extend that to non-government schools and into the community-based sector.
I have indicated before, and I will stress again, that the primary focus of this national partnership is around ensuring that early and quick access to this initiative goes to those most vulnerable. We are undertaking that process and we have evaluated a four-year rollout across the ACT. It includes the capacity to roll it out to non-government settings, be they non-government schools in the Catholic or independent sector or community-based childcare provision. The initiative is for universal access, not universal provision. At no point has it been intended by the commonwealth or the ACT that every single provider of preschool education will receive access to this federal funding. It is around universal access so that students and parents have access to 15 hours of free preschool education. In the ACT context that is delivered most effectively through our world-class network of government preschools, supplemented by provision in the non-government sector.
MS PORTER: Supplementary, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Thank you. Can the minister advise the Assembly if the budget passed earlier this year contained measures to ensure that all Canberra children are ready for
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