Labor has promised to scrap upfront fees for 10,000 early childhood education students studying at Tafe in an attempt to expand the workforce to prepare for universal childcare for three- and four-year-olds.

Bill Shorten will make the announcement on Friday, after promising to spend $9.8bn over 10 years to provide three- and four-year-olds with 600 hours of preschool or kindergarten a year.

“The early education and care workforce is incredibly vital to Australia’s future,” Shorten said. “With 90% of a child’s brain development occurring in the first five years of a child’s life, our early educators have a critical role in supporting our children’s growth.

“The demand for early childhood education workers is significant: almost 300,000 more children will need an early education and care place in 2019-20 than in 2016-17.”

In his budget reply in May, Shorten promised Labor would scrap upfront fees for 100,000 Tafe students at a cost of $380m over five years. The allocation of 10,000 of these places to early education courses has therefore already been factored into the opposition’s budget planning.

At least 200 of the places would go to Indigenous students seeking qualifications in early childhood education. Aspiring early childhood educators would also benefit from the plan to unfreeze commonwealth payments to universities and uncap places, Shorten said.

The Coalition responded by accusing Labor of “re-announcing policies their own members have said don’t work”.

It cited instances where senior Labor figures – including the shadow assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh, and the former tertiary education and skills minister Chris Evans – had said that lowering student contributions did not increase demand.

Labor's at it again re-announcing policies their own Members have said don't work 😳

Here’s one instance... pic.twitter.com/Qpo8bizbKB — Coalition_Media (@Coalition_Media) October 5, 2018

On Thursday the government did not rule out supporting an expansion of early childhood education but attacked the cost of Labor’s $9.8bn policy and the lack of detail about coordination with the states.

The education minister, Dan Tehan, said Labor wanted to extend preschool to three-year-olds “but it’s the states and territories who will pay for it, and ultimately the taxpayer”.

“Bill Shorten says he ‘thinks’ the states and territories will be happy to pay for his election promises but he hasn’t asked them,” he said. “Bill Shorten doesn’t say who will pay for the infrastructure to house all the three-year-olds requiring preschool.”

On Thursday the Victorian Labor government joined the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales in promising to extend preschool and kindergarten to three-year-olds from 2020 at a cost of $5bn.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, told reporters the expansion would require “a massive building program and that’s factored into the cost we have provided to you”.

“And of course, early childhood education starts and ends really with fantastic staff, so we are going to need to train and recruit many, many additional staff. That’s factored into the costs as well and we will have more to say about that in coming weeks also.”