Labor would extend 15 hours per week of subsidised early childhood education to three-year-olds for the first time

Labor will unveil a new plan to give both three and four-year-olds access to 600 hours of preschool or kindergarten in a $1.75bn funding commitment if Bill Shorten wins the next federal election.

The initiative, to be revealed by Shorten on Thursday, would extend 15 hours per week of subsidised early childhood education to three-year-olds for the first time. Four-year-olds already have access to universal early childhood education but the existing program is funded year-by-year.

In a statement issued ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Shorten said: “This is an economic and social reform as profound as lifting the school leaving age and opening up universal access to universities.

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“This reform will see two years of early childhood education permanently embedded into our education system, in recognition of the importance of the early years of a child’s life.”

Shorten said the investment would “help close the gaps created by disadvantage” and “help tackle the inequality faced by children born into low-income households who are currently denied educational opportunities that their peers may have”.

The Labor leader said he would work with the states and territories to roll out the change, including setting enrolment and attendance targets, particularly for Indigenous and vulnerable children.

The $1.75bn price tag is the cost over the forward estimates. Shorten is expected to confirm a 10-year costing in Thursday’s speech at Monash University. Labor says the spending is funded by previously announced revenue raising measures, including changes to negative gearing and dividend imputation reform.

The new funding for early learning comes as the Morrison government has attempted to boost its education funding credentials with voters ahead of the federal election by settling a long-running row with Catholic education over school funding with a peace deal worth $4.6bn.

With education always a key election battleground, the Australian Education Union has lobbied the federal government for guaranteed ongoing support for early childhood education, warning that providing only 12 months’ funding at a time leaves universal access under threat.

The AEU federal president, Correna Haythorpe, has also argued that Australia lags behind the rest of the world by offering only one year of pre-school “while many other OECD countries offer two years as standard”.

In February, a national review commissioned by state and territory education ministers concluded that early childhood education should be progressively expanded to three-year-olds, calling it the “single most impactful reform Australia could undertake” with a “compelling” case for investment.

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The review by the chairwoman of the Australian Council for International Development, Susan Pascoe, and academic Deborah Brennan found that in Australia only 15% of three-year-olds receive early childhood education compared with the OECD average of 68.6%.

In July the Australian Capital Territory announced it will extend 15 hours a week of preschool education to three-year-olds, joining New South Wales, which was the first state to announce such a policy.

On Wednesday the education minister, Dan Tehan, confirmed the government will provide $440m to the states and territories to roll over universal early childhood education for four-year-olds into 2019.

The extension of the national partnership will “ensure almost 350,000 children in Australia have access to 15 hours of quality early learning in the year before school”, he said.