Julia Gillard to lead royal commission into South Australia’s early education system

Former prime minister Julia Gillard will lead a royal commission into early education in South Australia, investigating how the state will bring forward the preschool start age by one year.

At the March state election, South Australia’s Labor part promised to give three-year-olds access to kindergarten from 2026, and announced a royal commission to look into how to do it and how much it would cost. 

Ms Gillard spent three years as the federal education minister, and since leaving politics was appointed chair of the Global Partnership for Education.

“I look forward to leading this royal commission in a very inclusive style as I want to hear what is the best way forward to implement universal access to preschool for three and four year olds,” she said.

She said the commission will hold public hearings, but will also include round tables, surveys and virtual parenting forums.

“The government has announced its policy and the purpose of the royal commission is to answer the question, ‘how can this be done?'” she said.

“We will be bearing down on that … this is about an implementation road map.”

“When we talk about the future of this state, it will really be defined by investments in our children.”

Mr Malinauskas said his government promised to make “one of the most comprehensive reforms in a generation to South Australia’s education system in the area of early childhood education”.

He said an additional $450,000 had been set aside for the royal commission, so it had a total budget of $2.45 million.

“All of the international research tells us that there are no more important years than their early years,” he said.

“If you can make the appropriate investments in the early years, you can set up a child for life.

“We need universal access to pre-school for three year olds and four year olds.”

He said the royal commission would allow the government to achieve that universal access for all South Australian children.

Mr Malinauskas said he has asked the royal commission to deliver its recommendations by August 31, 2023, with a preliminary report to be presented in April.

“This will be a far quicker royal commission than those that have proceeded it,” he said.

He said the recommendations were needed next year so the government could rollout three-year-old preschool by 2026.

Ms Gillard said it was an “ambitious” time frame but she would endeavour to meet it.