“No‐one has thought about what the implications of taking the Kindergarten from 10 to 15 hours would be and what it would mean to the community. Rather than having universal access, young children in country areas are going to have no access at all."
In the Federal Parliament last night the Federal Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, called on the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth to visit rural kindergartens in Victoria and speak to the parent groups about the grim difficulties they are facing under the Labor government’s so called universal access to childcare ‘reforms’.
Under the Labor government’s universal access to childcare reforms, Willaura, Lake Bolac and other small regional kindergartens in Wannon will be forced to increase their contact hours from 10 to 15 per week.
Whilst the small communities welcome the additional hours for their children to attend kindergarten, they currently struggle to fund raise the $25,000 they need to pay their teachers; just one additional hour in 2011 has increased the Willaura budget shortfall from $25,000 to $38,000. The parent groups at these kindergartens struggle to raise the current shortfalls they face in keeping their kindergartens open and have no idea how they will raise the extra shortfall for an additional four hours on top of the 2011 increase.
Sarah Millear, Secretary of the Willaura and District Kindergarten, says the Government’s Universal Access to Childcare reforms will seriously strain the over‐stretched community:
“The further increase in 2013 will leave us with an insurmountable fundraising requirement, forcing us to seriously consider closing the centre unless government funding is made available. If the Willaura Kindergarten is forced to close, there would inevitably be a drop in enrolments for the local primary school. The community playgroup and the maternal and child healthcare centre, which rely on the support of the kindergarten community, would have to look their long‐term viability as well. Three key services could be lost and the long‐term future of the school put at risk.”
Dan Tehan said this is typical of the way the Gillard Government makes policy. They have stopped country kids from doing a paper round before school, made it financially harder for country students to attend University and now they want to close rural kindergartens.
“No‐one has thought about what the implications of taking the Kindergarten from 10 to 15 hours would be and what it would mean to the community. Rather than having universal access, young children in country areas are going to have no access at all.
“The Gillard government has to be stopped in its tracks; otherwise it will rip the heart out of regional and rural Australia. It is time the Independents, who represent regional and rural electorates, recognised this. They made a huge mistake in putting the Gillard Government in power, they now need to cross the floor and bring down this government before it destroys the fabric of our rural communities,” Mr Tehan said.
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