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Kindergarten for every Queensland child

A child's participation in quality early childhood education lays the foundation for their future success in learning and life.

Kindergarten provides a world of carefully constructed play that early childhood experts agree develops children's abilities and helps prepare them for school.

The Queensland Government announced on Monday 19 October its plan to ensure all Queensland children have access to a kindergarten program by 2014.

Delivering this plan will mean that all children born from today will have access to a high quality kindergarten program in the year prior to Prep, giving all Queensland children the flying start they deserve.

The Queensland and Australian Governments are investing up to $889 million to deliver universal access to kindergarten marking the single largest investment in kindergarten in Queensland's history.

An additional 240 kindergarten services will be established by 2014. The new kindergartens will cater for the 12,000 children not currently accessing any centre-based early education or care services in Queensland. The locations of the first 20 new kindergarten services to open in 2010 and 2011 were announced in March 2009.

For the first time, the Queensland Government is providing funding to long day care centres to deliver quality kindergarten programs. Long day care services interested in being amongst the first 100 services to pilot the psrogram from early 2010 can apply for funding under the new scheme.

The Queensland Government will ensure every child can access a kindergarten program by:

establishing an additional 240 kindergarten services in areas where they are most needed
implementing a new kindergarten funding scheme for programs delivered in a variety of early childhood education and care settings, including long day care
developing innovative ways to provide a kindergarten program that meets the needs of families and children living in rural and remote locations
providing support for Indigenous children and children with additional needs participating in kindergarten
implementing workforce strategies to assist the sector in attracting and retaining the necessary early childhood education and care workforce, including a focus on early childhood teachers
developing Queensland guidelines for quality kindergarten learning programs, setting clear expectations about what children need to learn and the standards to be achieved.

The Queensland Government is working with its Toward Q2 partners, Childcare Queensland and C & K, and other early childhood education and care stakeholders, to implement Queensland's plan to provide all children with access to a kindergarten program.

C & K, a well respected, not-for-profit organisation with a proven track record in providing high quality early childhood education programs in Queensland, will deliver the majority of new kindergarten services on state school sites.

The delivery of universal access to kindergarten will build on the Queensland Government's successful introduction of the Prep year in 2007.

For more information please see the Making kindergarten for every child fact sheets

For further details on Queensland's early childhood reforms, download the Delivering world class education - starting early (new window) document or visit the Toward Q2 Tomorrow's Queensland website .