“That ICPA Qld lobbies the Department of Education to review the funding model for Rural and Remote Long Day Care Centres providing Kindergarten programs to ensure they, and the students/families that utilise the service, are not disadvantaged by changes made to the program.”
Last year, the Remote Area Funding (ARIA) went to the centre to distribute how it worked best for their centre. This year, the new funding model is allocated to individuals/families and the remoteness amount to the teacher (which is great, we need ECTs (Early Childhood Teachers) in our centres via the centre to distribute, but this model is not considering how these small centres with small numbers of children can distribute the funding. In 2022 QKFS (Qld Kindy Funding Scheme) had ARIA (Remote Area Funding) which was allocated to the centres in rural/remote Queensland. By not having extra funding for remoteness for the centres themselves to use to keep their business viable the long day care centres are put under financial pressure which means the increase in fees is passed on to parents/families. The roll out of this new funding has been, and continues to be very hard for the provider to understand and allocate funds, let alone the parents/families who turn to these providers for answers and come away with very little understanding of this new funding model. In small rural/remote towns we have no choice as to where we send our children for this very beneficial and important year of education - Kindy. In small towns we only have the one option of kindy that is available to us.
CASE-STUDY
Changes to kindy funding from 2022 (QKFS – Qld Kindy Funding Scheme) to 2023 (Kindy Subsidies):
- Kindy fees increase at Mitchell Long Day Care Centre:
- Kindy fees have increased from $65/day to $97.80/day for a 5-day fortnight kindy program from 2022 to 2023 with the new kindy funding. This is a $32.80 increase per day. The service has had to increase their fees to be able to run efficiently and sustainably. These increases will also increase overtime with the cost of living and wage increases etc. We need these facilities to stay viable for the future of our children and education in our little rural communities.
- Last year the funding (QKFS) was applied to the fees before CCS (Childcare subsidy – federal funding) was applied, therefore parental out of pocket was less.
- With the new funding, families receive the base subsidy which is $70/fortnight off their out-of-pocket fees. Some families receive the Kindy plus subsidy (A&TI, Healthcare care, pension, living out of home etc) or FTB A or B (Family Tax Benefit Subsidy) if eligible, these extra subsidies make the out of pocket less for these individual families
- This individual family’s out of pocket fees are/were approximately:
- 2022 - $32.50/day
- 2023- $45/day
- This individual family’s out of pocket fees are/were approximately:
- With the new funding, families receive the base subsidy which is $70/fortnight off their out-of-pocket fees. Some families receive the Kindy plus subsidy (A&TI, Healthcare care, pension, living out of home etc) or FTB A or B (Family Tax Benefit Subsidy) if eligible, these extra subsidies make the out of pocket less for these individual families
- If the long day-care didn’t provide a kindergarten program in the town the State Government would be funding a free State-run kindy at the local state school like the kindy program running half an hour down the road. It is not viable for these families to access this Kindy as it would be a 1 hour round trip twice a day and this would make it very difficult to have women in particular, in the work force and educate their kindy children.
- Other similar towns are experiencing these same issues through their kindy program run at their long day care
- The sessional kindy in Charleville’s out of pocket for this family would be approx. $21/day this year
