By Parker McKenzie
The Australian Education Union is asking Knox City Council to continue offering kindergarten services after the council announced a review of its 29 sessional services throughout the local government area in 2022.
Knox City Council released a statement on Wednesday 7 June stating that the council will meet on Monday 19 June to “decide on a preferred option for its future role in kindergarten services.”
“There are some big changes coming for kindergarten as part of the state government’s decision to increase hours, make kindergarten free and offer a second year of kindergarten before school,” the council said.
“In light of this, Council has been reviewing its kindergarten services. This is the responsible thing to do when there are such big changes ahead that could have impacts for our services and our community.”
The statement said no decision had been made yet and any changes will be effective from January 2025.
AEU Victoria launched a petition on Friday 2 June, asking the council to continue running its kindergartens.
“If Knox Council abandons kindergarten programs, it would mean that the families of 3 and 4-year-old children in the Knox area would no longer be able to access Knox Council-delivered free kindergarten programs,” the petition said.
“Currently the Council delivers high-quality play-based early childhood education.”
At the time of publishing, the petition has been signed 893 times.
At a council meeting on Monday 27 February, the council was presented with a report offering three options for the future of its kindergarten services: reducing the number of sites where it offers kindergarten and increasing to 15 hours a week for all three and four-year-olds, providing sessional kindergarten only at the Knox Children and Family Centres in Bayswater and Wantirna South and no longer providing any sessional kindergarten services.
The council said the “thorough service review has included financial modelling, staff feedback, community consultation and the assessment of a demographically representative community panel.”
“Knox is one of very few councils left in Melbourne that directly provides kindergarten on the scale that we do so these changes affect us more than other councils,” the council said.
“There are many services we provide on behalf of state and federal governments where funding has not kept up with the cost of providing services over time, and that is a risk that Council has to consider very carefully.”
Capire Consulting was appointed as an independent consultant to select a “demographically representative” panel to “seek the views of the community” on the changes. The panel met during March and April to review each option, and a statement from the panel will be presented to the council and published online.
Knox City Council operates 29 sessional kindergarten services in single-room, standalone facilities at a cost of $3.3 million to the council budget each year.
Since January 2022, the council’s kindergarten services have provided five hours of kindergarten to three-year-old children and 15 hours to four-year-old children. The state government’s expansion of universal kindergarten will see 4-year-olds receive 30 hours of pre-prep from 2025 and 15 hours for 3-year-olds from 2029.
The Victorian government provides a subsidy of $2500 per child to kindergarten service providers.
