It’s typical that once again Labor is choosing to play politics instead of focusing on improvements to our education system for the benefit of all our young people.
Their comments today, again clearly demonstrate that they are not interested in positive change to improve educational outcomes in Tasmania.
They also demonstrate that they have no faith or respect for our Kindergarten teaching professionals who work hard every day to provide a quality play based education for our children.
They are continuing to ignore the plethora of experts who support this change including the Children’s Commissioner, the Tasmanian Principals Association, the Peter Underwood Centre for Educational Attainment, the Smith Family, The Catholic Education Commission, and Independent Schools, well respected Tasmanian Educator, Elizabeth Daly and Saul Eslake.
This is a once in a generation opportunity to make structural change to improve education outcomes in Tasmania.
When the legislation is debated in the Lower House this week I urge the Greens and particularly Labor to engage constructively, without scaremongering, and to live up to their post-election rhetoric to “take the politics out of education”.
The overwhelming weight of evidence is that access to earlier, quality play-based learning improves education outcomes.
International evidence includes studies by Margaret McCain and Fraser Mustard (1999) and Heckman in 2012.
Most recently, Professor Edward Melhuish, a well-respected and leading early childhood researcher based at the University of Oxford has visited our state twice and is firmly behind our change.
The Hodgman Government is working to strengthen the early years model in our public schools.
Our proposal includes additional funding of over $100 million for more teachers in our schools, more teacher assistants and support staff, infrastructure upgrades where required and most importantly, earlier universal access to quality play based education for our young people.
Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Education and Training
