Early childhood had the biggest boosts in the education section of today’s Budget.
It used the spending to ease cost-of-living pressures on families with young children and address complaints from early learning centres about the affordability of pay parity for their teachers.
The single most-expensive new initiative extended eligibility for 20-hours of free early education to two-year-olds from 2024 at a cost of about $370 million per year.
The scheme provides extra funding to centres that do not charge fees for the first 20 hours of attendance and had been restricted to children aged three and over.
