In a scheduled appearance at the Australian Childcare Alliance Victoria’s Annual Conference Federal Minister for Education, Dan Tehan, spent 30 minutes engaging with and listening to feedback from approximately 200 delegates on a range of early childhood education and care (ECEC) subjects important to the sector.

“The biggest ever reform of early childhood education is just around the corner,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said, when joining children, parents and educators at Marang Kindergarten in Stawell last week to mark the first enrolments for Victoria’s funded three-year-old kinder programs.

Three weeks from now, on Wednesday 4 September, Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) will be celebrated, with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) marking the occasion with an English language launch of Nha Nhunu Nhanjal? at the Sydney Opera House.

In welcoming the recent announcement in relation to a specific focus on Australian children’s mental health for the next ten years, infant and child mental health advocate Emerging Minds said the strategy will “deliver early action early in life to build Australia’s mental prosperity”.

Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt has placed children under 12 years of age at the centre of the Government’s new Long Term National Health Plan, hoping to create what he is terming “the world’s best mental health system – stigma-free and focused on prevention”.