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Community kindergartens under threat

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Thursday, 05 August 2010 16:36

Dr Bruce Flegg MP
Shadow Minister for Education & Training
Member for Moggill

5 August 2010

Community kindergartens under threat

The viability of Queensland’s 50 year old kindergarten sector is under threat due to the Bligh Government’s shift to a voucher system and the complete withdrawal of subsidies for children under 3 ½ years of age and children in programs of less than 15 hours per week, the State Opposition said today.

Shadow Minister for Education and Training Dr Bruce Flegg said that previously the government guaranteed to fund 80% of the wages bill for kindergarten teachers but now under their voucher system, kindergartens will lose between 10 and 40% of their existing funding and will be responsible for footing the cost of any vacancies.

“This would particularly hurt regional and isolated areas where the number of children in a particular age group varies from year to year,” Dr Flegg said.

“If the government does not back down on these funding cuts to individual kindergartens, there is no avoiding mass closures and huge increases in fees,” he said.“

Yesterday in Parliament I listed five kindergartens* that had revealed their fees would increase anywhere from 16 to 100% and their funding would be cut from 20 to 50%,” Dr Flegg said.

“In response to continued LNP pressure to save community kindergartens and support the valuable work of their volunteer community boards, the Minister had indicated one off payments would be made in the 2011 year only,” Dr Flegg said.

“Kindergartens cannot continue without certainty of being able to fund their full time teaching staff and such a commitment was little more than a bandaid for a badly planned funding system,” Dr Flegg said.

"Today in Parliament, the Minister appeared to back away indicating that the government may be forced into additional funding but did not give any detail nor any budgetary amount.

“The new funding model for kindergartens has become a farce with hundreds of kindergartens across the State advising staff they are uncertain whether further wage costs will be able to be met,” Dr Flegg said.

“It’s time for the government to revisit this fatally flawed model of funding and give certainty to community kindergartens that they will be able to continue providing the early childhood education as they have done for the past 50 years,” Dr Flegg said.

“This is an important battle for Queensland communities,” Dr Flegg said.

“I sincerely hope that the government will respond to the LNP’s call to ensure funding is secured for community kindergartens and for the Minister to reverse his earlier decision to slash funding,” Dr Flegg said.