The Victorian regions to get first free pre-prep classes

These are the areas that will get the first free pre-prep classes as part of Victoria’s childcare overhaul. See when it will be rolled out in your suburb or town.

The free pre-prep classes will start to be rolled out across Victoria from 2025.

Victoria’s northern and western rural regions will be the first areas in the state to receive at least 16 hours of free pre-prep from 2025.

The Sunday Herald Sun can today reveal for the first time the complete schedule for the statewide rollout of the Andrews government’s $9bn childcare overhaul, which will not make it to metropolitan Melbourne areas until 2031.

In a schedule welcomed by educators but has some worried staffing shortages could hinder the rollout, council areas including Ararat, Gannawarra and Hindmarsh will be first to fully transition from four-year-old kinder to the new pre-prep year in 2025, along with Murrindindi, Northern Grampians and Yarriambiak.

All metropolitan council areas, including Glen Eira, Knox, Frankston, Dandenong and Boroondara, will receive the full 16 to 30 hours of free pre-prep from 2030.

But if the program is delivered on time, every Victorian family will have access to 30 hours of free pre-prep by 2032.

From 2026, the program will be rolled out in areas such as Benalla, East Gippsland and Wodonga.

Swan Hill, Colac Otway Shire and Alpine Shire will fully join the initiative in 2027, before it begins in areas including the Bass Coast, Shepparton and Macedon Ranges in 2028.

Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong will receive at least 16 hours of free pre-prep from 2029.

Aboriginal, vulnerable and refugee children will have access to the program by 2026.

All regional areas across Victoria are set to have pre-prep up and running by 2028, which is also when every disadvantaged child will be fully covered by the rollout.

Early childhood Minister Ingrid Stitt said kinders across Victoria would be upgraded to accommodate the reform designed to improve children’s early development.

“Early education has the most profound impact on a child’s development. That’s why we’re delivering free kinder for three and four year olds, establishing Pre-Prep, and upgrading or providing new equipment to every kinder to make sure kids have everything they need to get the best start,” she said.

“These once-in-a-generation reforms will not just give our kids a quality early education, they will also give them the best start to their whole lives.”

Eleven new kinders will also open tomorrow at schools such as Reservoir East Primary School, Lalor Primary School and Movelle Primary School, while others will open in regional areas, which include Drouin West Primary School, Newhaven and Wonthaggi primary schools.

About 140,000 families and their children are expected to receive between five and 15 hours of three-year-old kinder and 15 hours of four-year-old kinder this year under the $270m invested into the initiative for 2023.

Cassie Marsh, an early childhood teacher at Koondrook Preschool in the Gannawarra Shire, said it was “vital” for that area to be one of the first to begin pre-prep because many families had been on waiting lists to send their children to childcare and kinder.

The government describes the changes as once-in-a-generation reforms.

The facility also recently received an update and can now accommodate more children.

“It’s the first time we will be able to offer the full 15 hours for the three-year-olds, and that will then build up as this new rollout comes into place and we’ll then be able to extend those hours,” Ms Marsh said.

“This announcement has come at the perfect time, where we have the opportunity to set up how our days are running and to have a bit more flexibility with using our buildings.”

Gannawarra Shire Council acting community wellbeing director Paul Fernee said two parents in many rural families would be given the opportunity to work when the reform reaches the area because childcare facilities have previously been unable to keep up with demand or have remained too expensive.

“They want to work, and our community tells us that quite strongly, so offering 30 hours isn’t just a childcare solution, it helps with some of those challenges in a rural community.

But Mr Fernee said finding enough staff could be difficult amid teacher and early educator shortages around the country.

“The workforce challenge is probably going to be a major issue for the whole sector in moving into Pre-Prep. We’ll be needing additional workforce to make that happen here.”

The Andrews government announced the Best Start, Best Life initiative in June last year, which promised to start saving families up $2500 in fees in a bid to drive down ballooning childcare costs.

Kinder upgrades, the construction of new sites and Pre-prep are all part of the 10-year overhaul of the state’s early learning sector, which was developed based on research which has shown that a child’s brain is about 90 per cent developed by the time they are five years old.