Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Gichuhi for her question and her strong interest in education and training, and particularly in early education and development of our littlest learners in their preschool years. Indeed, the Turnbull government was pleased over the weekend to announce a further and ongoing commitment to preschool funding across Australia through part of an ongoing extension of the national partnership agreement in relation to universal access. This will see a further $440 million provided to the states and territories to support preschool services around the country. This will bring to some $3.7 billion the total scale of investment that federal governments have made to support access to preschool around the country. This is designed to underpin access to some 15 hours per week of preschool for children in the year before they start school, predominantly four-year-olds, and will support around 350,000 of our littlest learners to access high-quality preschool services.

Preschool is important for a range of reasons. It's important because it helps those children to develop the skills necessary to succeed at school, whether that's skills in terms of their behaviour, their socialisation or basic skills, such as holding a pencil. All of these attributes are critical. We've seen strong progress in terms of preschool enrolment over that time. However, concerningly, that progress has not always been met by the states and territories ensuring that children enrolled in preschool are fully participating. The Commonwealth funding that has flowed over this time has not resulted in states and territories getting high proportions of the children who have the greatest to gain from preschool participation to participate, which is the reason why the Turnbull government has put on the table for the states and territories the need to lift their game before longer term solutions in this area are addressed.