Free kindy for thousands of Queensland kids

Tens of thousands of Queensland families will soon be able to access free or discounted kindergarten, with parents now able to calculate how much they’ll save. HERE’S HOW IT WORKS

Tens of thousands of Queensland families will be able to access free or discounted kindergarten from next year, with people now able to calculate how much they stand to save.

Education Minister Grace Grace on Sunday said she was confident the chronic teacher shortage plaguing Queensland and the country would not impact the rollout of the free and cheaper kindy program, though the issue overall was “quite clearly” a concern.

Education Minister Grace Grace. Picture: NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

From the 2023 school year, about 14,000 vulnerable and disadvantaged Queensland families will get access to free kindergarten — thus saving about $4500 a year.

A further 26,000 families will see a reduction of between $500 and $3500 a year on kindergarten costs, depending on whether the child goes to a sessional kindy, a kindy in a long daycare along with other factors like access to family tax benefits.

In Queensland, children attend kindy the year they are scheduled to turn four.

The state government announced the kindy savings — part of a $1bn package to go until 2025/26 — in February, with Ms Grace announcing the savings calculator and push to get families to sign up on Sunday.

She acknowledged Queensland had an ongoing teacher shortage, including early childhood educators, but said she was confident this wouldn’t impact the ability for families to take part in the program.

“Quite clearly there is concern about the number of teacher shortages, not only in early childhood education, but in schools as well,” Ms Grace said.

“We’ve got ministers meeting in early December, we’ve got a workforce plan.

“We’re doing all we can in this state to attract as many teachers as possible by employing the numbers and making sure that we have excellent quality teachers in Queensland schools and early education but it is a concern.”

Lady Gowrie children’s programs general manager Fleur Cossey said shortages were happening across the sector, and her organisation was “working hard on providing incentives and opportunities” to attract new staff while retaining employees.

Kylie Cosa, mum to three-year-old Gigi, said the new subsidies would allow the family to save about $1500 a year with the funds coming at a time when cost-of-living was biting hard.

“It’s just a huge saving and for families that are in a different financial situation to us, who might be doing a little bit tougher, they’re going to save so much more than that.”

You can see what you’ll save at www.qld.gov.au/kindysavings