The Andrews Government is making it easier for families in Ballarat to secure a place in kindergarten for their child, by supporting the City of Ballarat to provide a one-stop-shop for kindergarten enrolments.

Council has been awarded a $24,000 grant to support their central enrolment system, helping to simplify the kinder enrolment process for families in 2020 and beyond.

Across the state, 47 local government areas have been awarded Central Enrolment Administrative Support Grants, thanks to a $5.5 million budget commitment by the Andrews Government.

Central enrolment systems allow parents to register their interest in enrolling their child in more than one kindergarten service in one place, without having to work through the different processes used by individual service providers.

The investment is supported by an additional $700,000 allocated in the 2019-20 Budget to support local councils to enrol three-year-old children in kindergarten, in line with the planned roll-out of funded Three-Year-Old Kindergarten across the state.

In an Australian first, the Andrews Government has committed almost $5 billion to deliver 15 hours of funded three-year-old kindergarten programs to children across Victoria over the next decade.

Three-Year-Old Kindergarten is starting in 2020 in six regional local government areas – South Gippsland, Buloke, Hindmarsh, Northern Grampians, Strathbogie and Yarriambiack.

The roll-out will continue progressively across the state, with families in a further 15 regional LGAs to benefit in 2021. This will be expanded in 2022 to give three-year-olds across the rest of the state access to five hours of funded kindergarten, before being scaled up to a full 15-hour program by 2029.

The Labor Member for Wendouree, Juliana Addison, said central enrolment allows funded kindergarten places to be allocated fairly to eligible children and has been shown to have a positive effect in engaging vulnerable children in kindergarten.

“Enrolling a child in kindergarten is an exciting step towards them getting a great early childhood education and that’s why we’re helping to simplify this process for families across Ballarat,” she said.

“It’s exciting that families in Ballarat are benefitting from central enrolment, which has been shown to have a positive effect on engaging vulnerable children in kindergarten,” Ms Addison said.

In 2018, the Government supported 52 councils to develop or extend central enrolment schemes.