Kindergarten children across Victoria will have access to lessons in a range of languages under the state Labor government’s latest education election promise.
Before most of the under-fives can read or write, they will be able to take part in sessions of 15 languages – including Mandarin, Arabic, Punjabi, Italian, Japanese, French, Greek, Hebrew and Spanish – at 150 kindergartens across the state under the plan announced on Thursday by Early Childhood Education Minister Jenny Mikakos.
This program is expected to reach more than 5,000 children across 160 kindergartens – a third of which are located in regional Victoria. Among these are 29 kindergartens which will offer Aboriginal languages and 27 that will offer Auslan.
The $17.9 million Early Childhood Language Program will provide additional staff to teach children a new language in partnership with existing staff – at no cost to parents or early childhood services.
Learning languages at a young age is shown to have benefits such as increased reading and writing skills, cognitive flexibility, strengthened brain development and improved problem-solving skills.
A re-elected Labor Government plans to invest almost $5 billion over the next decade to deliver a full 15 hours of three-year-old kinder, with the rollout beginning in 2020.