Understanding the impact of increased hours for three and four-year-old kindergarten

The recent announcement by the Victorian Government to fund 30 hours of ‘pre-prep’ kindergarten per week for four-year-olds came only two years after their commitment in 2020 to fund 15 hours per week for three-year-olds. Throughout 2020-21 the Department of Education met with all councils in Victoria to prepare Kindergarten Infrastructure Services Plans (KISP). During this time SocioLogic worked with many of those councils to explore and explain the Department’s methodology, ensure that councils’ own staff knowledge and expertise were factored in, and clearly demonstrate whether each KISP provided an accurate forecast of future supply and demand.

We are now working with Victorian LGAs to update their KISPs by modelling the impact of an increase from 15 to 30 hours per week for four-year-olds. We are also able to re-baseline a KISP with 2022 enrolment data for sessional preschools and integrated kindergarten programs within private childcare (long day care) centres.

advanced supply and demand modelling

SocioLogic has developed a comprehensive data model in discussion with the Department of Education and 14 metropolitan and regional councils across Victoria. The model allows councils to get ‘under the hood’ of their KISP data, run their own supply and demand analysis based on preferred population forecasts and geographies, assumptions and other modelling parameters, and to increase demand for four-year-olds from 15 hours to 30 hours per week.

The model has been instrumental in identifying areas of disagreement between the KISP and council’s own understanding of supply and demand, and showing the significant increase in infrastructure that will be required to service the Government’s latest commitments.

Councils use our model to:

• View when and where kindergarten and childcare shortfalls or surpluses exist across a municipality, for the total period of council’s population forecasts;

• Directly compare results for SA2 areas using State Government ‘Victoria in Future’ projections with councils’ preferred population forecasts (such as Forecast ID by ID Consulting);

• Inform discussion with the Department of Education regarding the KISP by showing clearly where differences in data, assumptions or modelling preferences exist;

• Understand the impacts of the rollout of kindergarten for three-year-olds and of new funding for 30 hours ‘pre-prep’ education for four-year-olds;

• Inform long-term planning for kindergarten services and infrastructure.

Example 1: compare the impact of 30 hours per week for four-year-olds compared with the adopted KISP (15 hours per week)

Example 2: visualise the impact of increases to three-year-old and four-year-old kindergarten using Council’s adopted population forecasts: