Preschool funding agreement

Preschool funding agreement

The Commonwealth and Western Australian governments have signed a preschool funding agreement. It will benefit more than 130,000 Western Australian children in the year before full-time school from 2022 to 2025.

The Preschool Reform Agreement confirms up to $190 million of Commonwealth funding for Kindergarten in Western Australia.

The agreement:

  • supports children to attend 15 hours of Kindergarten each week in the year before full-time school
  • ensures all children benefit from Commonwealth funding regardless of the setting they attend
  • aims to improve Kindergarten enrolment and attendance
  • maximises the benefit of Kindergarten by improving outcomes for children.

For more information refer to the Minister’s announcement.

As part of the Preschool Reform Agreement, the Australian Government is introducing a Preschool Outcomes Measure tool. 

The tool will be developed and validated in 2024 and trialled nationally in 2025. 

The Australian Government selectd the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), in partnership with Goodstart Early Learning and Ninti One, to lead the development of the Preschool Outcomes Measure. 

Ninti One will ensure Indigenous perspectives are included throughout the development and validation of the tool. This process will ensure the final products trialled in 2025 are inclusive and work well for all children.

The tool will give teachers  information they can use to inform children’s learning. The tool is expected to align with approved learning frameworks like the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, 2022, or state-approved equivalents.

Use of the tool will be optional.

We are working with the Australian Government to ensure the tool will suit Western Australian schools. The trial in 2025 will give us a chance to look at how well the tool supports students and teachers, and reduces workload.

We will provide updates once further details about the tool and the trial emerge.

For more information about the preschool outcome measure, refer to the Australian Government website. 

From 2023, the Commonwealth Preschool Reform Agreement funding is provided to all sectors delivering preschool (Kindergarten) programs. In Western Australia, this included the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector for the first time. We distribute the funding to government and non-government schools. 

In the 2023 calendar year, funding included:

  • $40.9 million to the schooling sector
  • $1.15 million to the ECEC sector
  • $5.6 million to programs that support preschool quality, equity and participation, and for preparation programs
  • 16 organisations received funding through the Supporting Children in ECEC Grant Program in 2023, benefitting 5,732 children. 

In the 2024 calendar year, funding included $45.1 million to the schooling sector for:

  • public schools
  • community kindergartens
  • Catholic schools
  • independent schools.

The ECEC sector received $1.27 million, with a further $2.67 million contributed to programs that support preschool quality, equity and participation, and for preparation programs.

In 2024, 14 organisations received funding through the Supporting Children in ECEC Grant Program. These grants are for the development of programs and initiatives to improve student enrolment, attendance, and preparation for Kindergarten for priority cohorts of children.  

Child Australia distributes the funding to the ECEC sector through a grants program. For more information refer to the ECEC WA Grant Program.

For more information, refer to the Preschool Reform Agreement.