By REBECCA ANGOVE
More than half of children in Queanbeyan are missing out on a preschool education, according to the Queanbeyan and District Preschool Association.
The chairman of the Advisory Board for the QDPA, Rod Pymont, said that with just three available services in Queanbeyan and one in Captains Flat there was an offering of 270 preschool places and the need was almost double.
“In our community, we don’t think that it would be any more than 50 or 60 per cent of children who would get some sort of preschool before primary school,” he said.
Mr Pymont said that parents were pushing their children to primary school earlier as there were not enough places for them in preschool and this could be damaging to their long term education.
“Preschool is an important introduction for a child, it teaches them to work in a group environment, obey rules and instructions, be part of structured and unstructured play and how to socialise with other children if they haven’t been in childcare,” he said. “It’s basically an introduction to primary school and further education.”
Mr Pymont said a goal of the Federal Government was that every child had access to at least 15 hours of preschool a week.
“It is impossible for Queanbeyan to achieve this as most children are only getting about six hours a week and the centres are always full,” he said.
Mrs Kay McGilvray who also works for the QDPA, said the Department of Community Services identified a need for 236 additional places for Queanbeyan last year.
“To get 236 we need at least another six classrooms or 150 per cent of our current capacity,” she said. “There is a lot of work to do if we want to achieve this education goal for our community.”
