The Victorian Government is creating extra kinder places in Williamstown with a boost to early education infrastructure ─ making sure young children in the area can access and enjoy Three-Year-Old Kinder.
Minister for Early Childhood Ingrid Stitt today announced a $600,000 Building Blocks capacity grant for One Tree Altona North Children’s Centre ─ one of 10 successful grant recipients to share in $13.3 million, creating 561 funded kindergarten places across nine local government areas.
The expansion will not only increase the capacity of the service to provide an additional 73 kindergarten places to meet the expected undersupply of kindergarten places, it will also provide a physical link between the existing kindergarten and long day care centre facilities to ensure better connectivity for families accessing the service.
The Building Blocks Grants program is a streamlined overarching funding scheme that supports early childhood providers with new and existing infrastructure and facilities for eligible three and four-year-old kindergarten
services.
For more information about Building Blocks Grants, visit: https://www.schoolbuildings.vic.gov.au/Pages/Building-Blocks.aspx.
In an Australian-first, the Victorian 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-Kinder roll-out, the Victorian Government is upgrading infrastructure through a
$1.68 billion co-investment with the early childhood sector to build and expand kindergarten facilities across the state.
Quote attributable to Member for Williamstown Melissa Horne
“We’re proud to be boosting early childhood services in Williamstown – because we know how important the early years are in setting our kids up for the rest of their lives.”
Quote attributable to Minister for Early Childhood Ingrid Stitt
“We are investing in more infrastructure for the early childhood sector to ensure Victorian families can access more kinder places and better facilities so their children can get the best start in life.”
