Brimbank council will urge state and federal education ministers to keep funding 15 hours a week of kindergarten for four-year-olds beyond December this year.
Council administrators last week agreed to write to federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne and his Victorian counterpart Martin Dixon to highlight concerns about the ‘‘watering down’’ of universal access to kindergarten from
next year.
In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments committed to a national agreement on early childhood education, ensuring that all states and territories would provide at least 15 hours of kindergarten for children in the year before school.
This year’s state budget maintained funding for Victoria’s share of 10 hours of kindergarten programs. However, the federal government has not committed any funding beyond December for the five hours that it funds.
The federal government said it was waiting on an independent review into whether the states had met preschool access targets before recommitting to the program.
Federal Assistant Education Minister Sussan Ley said she had been trying to expedite the review since last year.
‘‘The review is expected to be completed before year’s end,’’ Ms Ley said.
St Albans mother of three Tracey Cole said she’d be worried about her son Cooper’s speech development if the kindergarten requirement was scaled back to 10 hours.
“At the moment, the only interaction he has with children his own age is at kinder,’’ she said.
‘‘He’s picking up on what the other kids are saying.’’
