BY HEJIRA CONVERY, KINDICARE

JULY 8, 2025

The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) has shown that nearly one in four South Australian children begin school with some form of developmental vulnerability, and instead of just worrying about this statistic, the South Australian government is taking action to bring this figure down. 

The Malinauskas government is investing $1.9 billion in the Flying Start early childhood reforms, and from 2026, they’re rolling out the first stage of universal three-year-old preschool. 

As part of this, more than 200 long day care services have partnered with the government to offer a teacher-led, play-based three-year-old preschool program that will give children a great grounding for school and life.  

This program will generally be for 15 hours per week (or up to 600 hours per year), and it’s specially designed to build foundational skills, like confidence, curiosity and social skills, before little learners head to big school. 

More than 6,000 three-year-olds are set to benefit from this new preschool program in 2026, and over time, this number will grow.  

Each year, more and more services will join the three-year-old preschool roll-out, until every three-year-old has access to 15 hours per week of preschool by 2032.  

For now, it’s great to know that lots of quality long day cares are offering three-year-old preschool from next year – and not just in Adelaide.  

Three-year-old preschool is being offered across metropolitan, regional and rural areas, with the program also available at 45 government preschools in regional and remote communities, and you can start looking into it now.  

If your child is turning three in the not-so-distant future, the calculator on this page makes it easy to work out when they might start preschool. 

You can then search for participating services in your area here. 

And once you’ve found a service that looks good, you can check its quality ratings, parent reviews, value for money rating and other important details using the free KindiCare App or Childcare Comparison Website.  

KindiCare will also help you estimate your family’s fees after Child Care Subsidy, which is important because three-year-old preschool isn’t free.  

Individual providers decide which fees they’ll charge, and if your child goes to a long day care that’s participating in three-year-old preschool, the Child Care Subsidy will reduce your fees (assuming you’re eligible for it).  

That said, the benefits of a quality preschool program are priceless. 

South Australia’s Premier, Peter Malinauskas, says, “Three-year-old preschool sets children up with the skills and confidence they need to ensure they are ready to learn as soon as they head to school.”  

And although four-year-old preschool is great, he explains that, “Two years of quality preschool are better than one, particularly for those children in disadvantaged and low-socio economic areas.” 

The South Australian government is definitely committed to improving that AEDC statistic about school starters, and sees three-year-old preschool as the most effective way to substantially bring down the number of children beginning school with a developmental vulnerability. 

To this end, they’re providing a Preschool Boost funding program to help partner preschool services provide extra special support to children and families. 

And there’s also teaching, workforce and infrastructure support available to all centre-based services, to set everyone up for success as universal three-year-old preschool is rolled out in the coming years.  

This is all very promising, and whether you tap into three-year-old preschool as a family, or just feel happy for South Australia as a society, two years of a quality preschool program is definitely good news.