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Infrastructure boost to support three year old kinder in Victoria
Freya Lucas
Sep 06, 2021
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The Victorian Government has committed to creating thousands of extra kinder places through a boost to early education infrastructure, to ensure young children across the state can access three-year-old kindergarten.
Victoria’s Minister for Early Childhood Ingrid Stitt announced an investment of over $60 million for new and existing kindergartens late last week, including $47 million towards a Building Blocks partnership with Wyndham City Council ─ the first collaboration of its kind with a local council, creating more than 3,600 kinder places across Wyndham by 2029.“This council partnership is the first of what we hope will be many to support the roll-out of Three-Year-Old Kinder by delivering a pipeline of works to create new and expanded kinders for local Victorian communities,” Ms Stitt said.
The new partnership will offer greater investment certainty for kindergarten projects ─ delivering a pipeline of 17 planned new and expanded kindergartens sites in Wyndham to support the roll-out of the landmark three-year-old kinder reform. In the first stage nine early childhood infrastructure projects will be delivered by 2025, creating more than 1,800 15-hour funded kindergarten places.
Wyndham City Council Mayor Adele Hegedich welcomed the announcement, which will support the community to meet the future demand for care.
“Around 100 babies are currently being born each week in Wyndham, which means we need long-term planning and funding for kindergarten services to keep pace with this ongoing boom,” the Mayor added.
Projects include the recently announced two-room modular kindergarten in Point Cook for 2022 and three-room integrated children’s centres in Wyndham Vale, Werribee West and Truganina across 2023 and 2024. Communities in Hoppers Crossing South, Point Cook North and Tarneit will also benefit from new integrated early childhood centres.
The Victorian Government has also provided funding support to deliver an additional eight early childhood infrastructure projects in Wyndham between 2025 and 2029 ─ boosting kindergarten places to over 3,600 for the community.
Beyond Wyndham a further $13.3 million in Building Block Capacity grants have been announced to help expand and modify ten services ahead of the statewide roll-out of Three-Year-Old Kinder in 2022.
Kinder services in Ballarat, Cardinia, Geelong, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Melton, Moreland, Wellington Shire and the Yarra Ranges will benefit from the funding to build new centres,renovate buildings and rooms, improve outdoor play areas and upgrade facilities ─ creating 561 funded kindergarten places.
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