Federal backflip over funding cuts brings joy for kinders

Children will be guaranteed 15 hours of kindergarten a week after the federal government decided against cutting kindergarten funding in next week’s budget.

There had been widespread concern that councils would stop receiving government funding for kindergarten services from July1, leaving multimillion-dollar gaps in local budgets.

But on Sunday, the government announced funding would continue for another two years.

The funding is part of the universal access program, which gives four-year-old children 15 hours of kindergarten each week. Wyndham council receives $3 million as part of the agreement, which was signed by the federal and state governments in 2009.

Since the program was introduced by the former Labor government, the proportion of Australia’s children receiving 15 hours or more of kindergarten or pre-school each week has risen from 23 to 82 per cent.

A Productivity Commission review earlier this year recommended the federal government continue funding preschools and kindergartens.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the funding would continue because it was important that children have access to pre-school.

The funding reprieve comes days after the council launched its Kinder Matters at Wyndham campaign, fearing that without federal money it would be forced to increase fees or reduce the hours children attend kinder.

Mayor Peter Maynard said Wyndham had supported the universal access program and wanted it to continue.

He said stopping the funding would have been unfair.

“We consider both of these options to be unacceptable as they could put many parents in an unenviable position of having to pay significantly higher fees, reducing their working hours or finding extra childcare in an already stretched system.”