Parents who send their preschoolers to a daycare will receive NSW government grants for the first time, with a reduction in fees for four- and five-year-olds to be extended to private schools.
With a $ 1.4 billion package, families will receive up to $ 2,000 per child each year, which will be paid directly into the service and deducted from fees, in an attempt to make early childhood education more affordable.
Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet at the Goodstart Early Education Center in West Ryde. The NSW government will offer a reduction in fees for preschoolers as part of its drive to make daycare more affordable and accessible. Credit: Pool / Jeremy Piper
Grants will not be conditional on resources and will be based on the number of hours of attendance.
To date, the state government has provided a reduction in fees for public nursery schools, which it funds, and the federal government has been in charge of grant subsidies for long-term private daycares.
As part of the package, there will also be up to $ 4,000 in annual fee relief for three-, four- and five-year-olds attending community or mobile preschools funded by the NSW Department of Education.
Some 740 community and mobile preschools have been offering free places since 2020, when the government introduced the measure to encourage attendance at early childhood education during the pandemic.
However, the government will also offer some relief to parents who send their children to long day care centers with preschool programs. Long daycare expenses are usually higher than preschool expenses.
The package, which will run for four years and will be included in next week’s state budget, is part of the government’s drive to make childcare and early childhood education more affordable and accessible.
As part of the government’s signed budget policy, it will provide funding to private daycare operators to expand or build new centers, creating an additional 47,000 statewide vacancies.