A Shorten Labor Government will scrap upfront fees for 10,000 early education students studying at TAFE – boosting our early education workforce.

Today’s announcement is part of Labor’s plan for a National Preschool and Kindy Program, giving every child in Australia access two years of quality childhood education.
 
The early education and care workforce is incredibly vital to Australia’s future.
 
With 90% of a child’s brain development occurring in the first five years of a child’s life, our early educators have a critical role in supporting our children’s growth.
 
The demand for early childhood education workers is significant: almost 300,000 more children will need an early education and care place in 2019-20 than in 2016-17.
 
In this year’s budget reply, Labor announced that we would waive upfront fees for 100,000 students to attend TAFE.
 
As part of Labor’s commitment to early education, we will allocate 10,000 of these places to early education courses.
 
We will also ensure that at least 200 of these places go to indigenous students seeking qualifications in early childhood education.
 
Supporting the workforce will be a key plank of Labor’s plan to give our kids the best start possible before they reach school.
 
Labor will ensure every three year old in Australia will be able to access 15 hours of subsidised early childhood education, so they can get the best start to learning.
 
Labor will also extend the current arrangement for four year olds accessing preschool – creating a quality, two-year program to support the most important years of a child’s development, an investment of an additional $9.8 billion over the decade.
 
These 10,000 TAFE places will be supported by Labor’s plan to uncap university places – which will see 200,000 more Australians get a university education.
 
Labor’s plan to uncap university places will ensure there are no barriers for students wishing to study to become bachelor qualified early childhood teachers - delivering the national preschool and kindy program to 3 and 4 year olds.
 
Australia’s future will rely on training the next generation in the skills our communities need.
 
We’ve made sensible, overdue reforms so that we can invest in things like education and training – so that we can hand on a better deal for the next generation.
 
Only Labor understands the importance of early education – because we’re committed to giving Australian kids a fair go and a brighter future.