Yvette Berry announces three-year-old preschool but 'workforce crisis' a barrier for expansion

Education Minister Yvette Berry said the government would love to be able to increase universal early childhood education but there were workforce issues.

Ms Berry said the territory would advocate for better pay for workers in the sector.

"We'd all love to increase early childhood education across the board, particularly free universal access for preschool age students and three- and four-year-olds," she said.

"We have a workforce crisis at the moment, which is why we're investing in the workforce to ensure they are qualified in the sector to be able to provide the preschool education and also the physical, actual, capability of services to be able to provide free and universal access to early childhood education."

Three-year-olds in the territory will be able to access one day a week of free early childhood education from next year. The measure will be included in the ACT budget.

The government has allocated more than $50 million to the initiative over the next four years. About 5000 children will be able to access the free education and the government is aiming to eventually increase this to 15 hours a week. Four-year-olds can currently access this amount.

The investment will also include a survey of the territory's early childhood education workforce capacity and needs, a professional learning resource portal for educators and a partnership with the sector to deliver supports such as study financial assistance and paid leave.

Ms Berry said the ACT government would continue advocating to the Commonwealth around pay rates for early childhood educators.

"These are some of the things that we continue to advocate with the Commonwealth government to support funding around making sure those people can be paid similar to early education in primary and public school settings," she said.

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NSW and Victoria have promised to expand its preschool program for four-year-olds to five days a week by 2030. The ACT has not made any such promises at this stage.

Early Childhood Australia chief executive Samantha Page welcomed the investment, saying it would make a "significant difference" for children. She said it would be great if the program could be expanded but workforce shortages were an issue.

"I'd like to see it expanded, I understand we need to be cautious we have a workforce shortage," she said.

"In order to expand beyond the one day we need to make sure that we have enough early childhood teachers and educators to deliver those services as well as enough physical buildings and services to provide support to families wherever they are across the ACT."

Northside Community Service chief executive Anna Whitty said she was thrilled about the announcement but also acknowledged workforce issues. Northside Community Service runs five early education centres in the territory.

"We know that early childhood education makes a difference in children's lives and sets them up for lifelong learning and success," she said.

"We have a national issue with the early childhood workforce and investing into educators will mean that we can attract and retain the skilled workforce.

"I think this will go towards ensuring we can attract and retain the workforce there. There's a national workforce issue at the moment but I think this announcement and this investment from the ACT government is a really important one."

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