- Published:
- Friday 3 December 2021
The Andrews Labor Government is making sure more young children across the state can access and enjoy Three-Year-Old Kinder, investing in more early education infrastructure to create more places in Victorian kindergartens.
Minister for Early Childhood Ingrid Stitt today announced seven Building Blocks Capacity grants worth over $7.8 million to help expand kindergarten services across six local government areas.
Kinder services in Bayside, Moreland, Whittlesea, Glen Eira, Maribyrnong and Stonnington will benefit from the funding to build new centres, renovate buildings and rooms, improve outdoor play areas and upgrade facilities ─ creating 239 extra funded kindergarten places.
Building Blocks is a grants program supporting early childhood providers with new and existing infrastructure and facilities for eligible three and four-year-old kindergarten services.
The Capacity grants allow early childhood services to create extra infrastructure capacity for funded kindergartens, as well as improving access to local early childhood services.
To find out more about the Building Blocks program, visit schoolbuildings.vic.gov.au/Pages/Building-Blocks.
In an Australian-first, the Labor Government is investing almost $5 billion this decade to provide three-year-old children with access to an additional year of funded kindergarten programs.
From 2022, three-year-old children across the state will have access to at least five hours of kindergarten. Services will then scale up their hours to reach the full 15-hour program by 2029.
As part of the Three-Year-Old Kindergarten roll-out, the Victorian Budget 2021/22 has co-invested $1.68 billion with the early childhood sector to build and expand kindergarten facilities across the state over this decade.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Early Childhood Ingrid Stitt
“We know how important the early years are - that’s why we are delivering unprecedented investment in early childhood services across Victoria to help our kids and their families access better quality programs and facilities.”
“By improving and expanding the learning environments of our kinders, we are making sure children right across the state can enjoy learning in modern, fit-for-purpose environments – giving them the best start to life.”