Knox Council could slash almost 30 sessional kindergarten services
A council has sparked outrage over its plan to reduce sessional kindergarten services, leaving families and staff in limbo.
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Knox Council could slash almost 30 sessional kindergarten services, leaving families and staff in limbo.
A council report, which will be voted on at next Monday’s meeting, recommends slashing council-run kinder services being provided at 29 facilities to just two.
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.
At a council meeting in February the council was presented with a report offering three options for the future of its kindergarten services.
These options included 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.
Local politicians, the union and parents have joined together to demand the council not reduce their sessional kinder services.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) has launched a petition, which has gained more than 1000 signatures, asking the council to continue running its kindergartens.
“If Knox Council abandons kindergarten programs, it would mean that the families of three and four-year-old children in the Knox area would no longer be able to access Knox Council-delivered free kindergarten programs,” the petition said.
Australian Education Union Victorian Branch President Meredith Peace said: “Each and every year, over 1100 children rely on the City of Knox to provide local-government run kindergarten programs delivered by around 55 teachers and 76 educators.”
“Not a single councillor on the City of Knox council was elected with a mandate to walk away from the provision of local kindergarten services,” Ms Peace said.
“All of the research shows that two years of high quality, play based early learning delivered by qualified teachers and educators sets kids up for life.
“Young children learn and develop an enormous range of critical foundational skills in the years before they start school.
“The key areas of early childhood development; physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, executive function, language, cognitive skills, and communication skills have been shown to predict children’s later outcomes in health, wellbeing and academic success.”
Bayswater state Labor MP Jackson Taylor said: “To say I’m alarmed at this report is an understatement.”
“Locals have told me they value their council kinder, delivered by exceptional staff. This is now under threat,” he said.
Vanessa, a local parent, said she would be “directly impacted” by the proposed changes.
“It’s completely unacceptable to hang local mums and dads out to dry like this,” she said.
In a statement from Knox Council, it said: "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.”
“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.
“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.
“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.”
The statement said no decision had been made yet and any changes will be effective from January 2025.
Knox Council has been contacted for comment.
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