Kindergarten funding rates

Victorian government funded kindergarten providers can find which funding rates are applicable to their services in the table below.

The same rates apply to funded three-year-old and four-year-old enrolments in programs of 15 hours per week. For services delivering a funded Three-Year-Old Kindergarten program less than 15 hours, child level funding will be provided on a prorated basis.

Table 1 – 2023 kindergarten funding rates

*All rural services with 18 or fewer enrolments will receive a base funding amount that is equivalent to 18 enrolments at the relevant rural per capita rate. Rural services with 19 or more enrolments will receive the relevant rural per capita rate for all enrolments up to 45 children, and where applicable, the standard per capita rate for the 46th enrolment and above.

**From 2019, non-government school kindergarten services in the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) 1 will receive the standard per capita rate. SEIFA is a measure of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage. SEIFA 1 is an area of highest relative disadvantage. Other non-government schools are classified as type 1 and type 2 as per the Kindergarten Funding Guide.

***Services that are signatories to the Early Childhood Enterprise Agreements are services that operate under the new Victorian Early Childhood Teachers' and Educators' Agreement (VECTEA) or the Early Education Employees' Agreement (EEEA) or an approved equivalent agreement.

^In 2023, Free Kinder funding is included in the ESK funding rates. ESK enrolments at services that opt-in to Free Kinder will not be paid Free Kinder funding in addition to the ESK funding rates.

^^Ratio supplement funding is paid per child to any service eligible for standard or rural per capita funding offering sessional programs with groups of 23 or more at the required teacher child ratio of 1:11 that do not attract Commonwealth Child Care Subsidy. Long day care services and services managed by non-government schools are not eligible for the ratio supplement.

For the purpose of kindergarten funding, a group is defined as children attending a kindergarten session at the same time in a room with a qualified early childhood teacher. The number of children in each group should not exceed 33 children at any one time. In the case of rotational programs, a number of smaller subgroups may be brought together to create a larger group as defined above.

In 2023, the KFS Ratio Supplement has been included in the KFS rate.

^^^The ECTS is available to services that employ eligible teachers under the Victorian Early Childhood Teacher and Educator Agreement (VECTEA) 2020 or the Early Education Employees Agreement (EEEA) 2020 (or an Agreement with an equivalent salary structure and employment conditions).

^^^^In 2023, Free Kinder funding is included in the Pre-Purchased Places (PPP) funding rate. Enrolments that fill PPPs at services that opt-in to Free Kinder will not be paid Free Kinder funding in addition to the PPP funding rates.

Table 2 – Travel allowance

Table 3 – Early Years Management

*Long day care services that deliver both integrated and sessional programs are paid at the long day care rate.