Press Conference: Expanding access to early education in New South Wales
JULIA FINN, MEMBER FOR GRANVILLE: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sherwood Range Public School here in Merrylands West. I’m Julia Finn, I’m the member for Granville, and this is one of the six public preschools that are being built across my electorate, and I’m absolutely thrilled to be here. It looks beautiful. I actually had no idea it was going to look this amazing. So thank you so much to the Deputy Premier, Prue Car, the Minister for Education for delivering this. This is going to make such a difference for families in my area. It makes it a lot of easier with the morning drop-off, being able to have their kids at preschool and at the same school. And it’s – this is an area where there actually isn’t a preschool, so this is really, really needed. So thank you so much for this. This is going to be great.
PRUE CAR, NSW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND EARLY LEARNING: Thanks, Julia. It’s great to be here at Sherwood Grange as we take a look at really the final stages of this new public preschool being built here for this community here in this beautiful part of Western Sydney. This is one of the 100 public preschools we are building across New South Wales, picked in areas of need and areas that are underserviced when it came to early childhood education, particularly preschool education.
This, of course, is the biggest expansion of public preschools in the history of New South Wales. By day 1, term 1 next year every single one of those 100 public preschools will be open and operating. We’ve already opened quite a few of them, and to see our littlest learners running in, participating in play-based learning, enjoying the outside, really getting those first building blocks of literacy and numeracy through play-based curricula, it’s just amazing to see. This is something we’re really proud of as a government.
But today we’re here with the Commonwealth government also with Ministers Clare and Walsh to say that working with the Commonwealth government we’re really proud and thankful to the Federal government for funding to be able to work together to build more early childhood education on public school sites. This is an example of what it can look like. It’s game changing for local families. As Julia said, it gets rid of the double drop-off, but also it means that children can actually have a better transition educationally from early childhood education to kindergarten. And just as Vicki, the wonderful principal will tell you, and every principal I’ve met that has a public preschool or getting one will tell you, there is such a difference in being able to transition kids from preschool to kindergarten when they’re on the same site.
This new funding, this historic levels of funding from the Commonwealth government, will enable us to be able to work with them to build more sites of early education on public schools across New South Wales. There are nine sites. That’s going to make a massive difference to these communities. And we’re really grateful for the opportunity to work with the federal government. This is the federal government looking at the evidence, looking at what works, and actually putting money down to ensure that we get it delivered.
This is on top of the record amount of money that we were able to secure with Minister Clare through the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement to make sure that New South Wales public schools are finally fully and fairly funded. So, a great example of the state and the federal government working together to make sure that more children can access high-quality education, whether it’s early education or high-quality public education.
JESS WALSH, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND MINISTER FOR YOUTH: Thanks, Prue. Well, it’s great to be here today to make what is a historic announcement. Quality early childhood education and care gives children a great start in life, and it helps families thrive. But we know that not all children and family have access to the benefits of that quality early childhood education and care. And that’s why we’re partnering with the New South Wales government to build nine new early learning services across the state in areas that are currently underserved and that have real need for quality early childhood education and care.
We are providing $59 million in funding to build nine services from down south in Eden across here in Western Sydney up to Inverell in the north. We’ll be creating 400 new places for families. All of the new services that we’re building will be co-located with New South Wales public schools. And we can see right here today the benefits that will bring for children.
Co-locating with schools is great for kids. It helps them see the big school just next door. It helps them imagine putting the uniform on, and it helps them transition smoothly to school. And co‑locating early education with schools is also great for families. It gets rid of that dreaded double drop-off, and it gives families a one-stop-drop.
We’re really proud of this investment. It’s part of our billion-dollar investment in building more quality, not-for-profit-led early childhood education in the places where families need it the most.
JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, I think Prue and Jess have said it all. This is a brilliant example of the fantastic work the New South Wales government is doing in public education. What you can see here is one of a hundred preschools that the state government is building on public school grounds across the state. And Prue, I know you’re proud of this, and you should be. And Murat and the whole team, what you’re doing here is not just transforming the lives of the kids that will go here, helping to better prepare them for school, but you’re actually changing the way public education works and building a better and a fairer education system for the next generation of Australians.
I know that’s what you’re about, and that’s what I’m about as well. And what we’re announcing today really builds on all of that. To build more centres like this, the Commonwealth government providing $59 million to build more centres, but working hand in hand with the state government on public school grounds here in New South Wales so that the children that go to these centres get the benefits that we’re talking about today.
As Prue said, if you go to preschool here, you’re going to be better prepared for the public school that you go to the year after that. This really is the trifecta – it’s good for parents, it’s good for kids and it’s great for public education. It’s good for parents because it makes it easier to go back to work and it gets rid of that double drop-off if you’ve got one child here and one child going to the primary school. It’s good for kids because all the evidence tells us that if you get access to early education then you’re better prepared to go to school, to go to big school. Every principal, every teacher tells me that. They tell me that when kindergarten starts at the start of every year and you look at the kids in your classroom, you can tell the kids that have been to preschool. And it’s also bloody fantastic for public education. As Prue said, we’re now investing an extra $20 billion in public education right across the country as a result of the agreements that we struck with New South Wales and other states and territories across the country. And this builds on that and helps to do what we call want to do – and that is, build a better and fairer education system for this generation of kids and the ones to come. Thanks very much. Happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST: I’ll just ask either Minister Clare or Minister Car, [indistinct] a hundred new preschools, how is the staffing looking in terms of actually servicing and providing [indistinct]?
CAR: Yeah, well, in terms of these 100 public preschools, we’re powering ahead with making sure that they are fully staffed with fully qualified teachers, teachers that are qualified in early childhood education and often primary education also. We know that the workforce challenges in early childhood is something that is a challenge. Both governments have been investing in that. I know the worker retention payment from the Commonwealth has really resulted in great outcomes in terms of supporting the workforce in early childhood education. As a state government we’re also investing in scholarships as well to ensure that we attract and retain staff in early childhood education. Because we have to do both things at once – we have to build amazing facilities and we also have to put the best quality teachers and educators in these facilities. We’ve learnt that with schools. We had a chronic teacher shortage in primary and secondary schools when we came to government in New South Wales; now vacancies are at a 12-year low. We have to build the buildings as well as create that magic between the teacher and the classroom or, in this case in a preschool, the teacher and the mud kitchen or the playroom. Their classroom is quite different from another classroom. But we’re on top of that.
CLARE: Maybe if I can add in on that, backing what Prue is saying. When you pay people more, more people want to do the job. And we saw that with the fantastic decision that the New South Wales government made, the record-breaking salary increase for school teachers here in New South Wales. And we’re seeing that in early education, too. That 15 per cent pay rise through that worker retention payment has seen a 19 per cent reduction in vacancies in early education centres across the country and 19,000 more workers in our early education centres since that was put into place. You know, this is not babysitting; this is early education. And we see it through the work that we do. We know how critical and how important that work is. And when you pay people more – guess what? – more people want to do the job.
JOURNALIST: And would you say new centres like this are servicing a current growth that’s being faced or, like, a future growth in population?
CAR: Well, these 100 public preschools are servicing areas where the need was not being met. They were independently assessed in terms of the site selection then recommended to government. So government didn’t choose the sites where they are; it was based on where there was unmet need, where there was a desert in terms of preschool education. So, really, what we’re doing as a state government with these 100 public preschools is beginning the catch-up because there has never been a government that’s invested in public preschools the way that we have. So we’re playing catch-up. This next step and this really welcome investment from the Commonwealth government is then going further. So we just have to keep building these services in areas where there is unmet need. That unmet need we believe will not be met unless the government directly intervenes, and that’s what we’re doing.
JOURNALIST: Just in relation to the man that was arrested who allegedly stole that camera from one of the Bondi victims, have you heard this news and what’s your reaction to that?
CAR: Yeah, look, this is really obviously extremely distressing. I believe this is before the courts. The gentleman was a retired police officer. He gave his life in service of that local community. And, look, distressing news on probably one of the worst days in the history of New South Wales. So we’ll let that play out through the courts. But this is very upsetting. Every time there is more news about that devastating day, I just want to be really clear that, you know, our thoughts and efforts are always with the people impacted on that day and since that day and the pain that is still being felt in our Jewish community in New South Wales. And that’s probably all I can say at this point as it’s before the courts.
Great, thank you.