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What we're doing to support the early childhood workforce

The Victorian Government is investing almost $370 million to attract and upskill early childhood teachers and educators.

Thousands of aspiring early childhood teachers and educators will help to deliver Victoria’s $14 billion Best Start, Best Life reforms - including Three-Year-Old Kindergarten and Pre-Prep - over the coming years.

To support the workforce, the Victorian Government has expanded the suite of scholarships, incentives, educator traineeships and career advancement programs and supports.

We’re investing almost $370 million to attract high-quality early childhood teachers and educators to the sector and support and upskill existing professionals, to help children get the best start in life.

The funding includes:

  • upskilling 780 diploma-qualified educators to become degree-qualified teachers
  • delivering better placement and mentoring experiences for 550 students
  • enabling up to 200 trainees to undertake a paid traineeship in an early childhood service while completing a relevant Certificate III qualification.

Immediate support is already available to help early childhood services recruit qualified teachers and educators. This includes:

  • financial incentives of up to $50,000 to encourage professionals to move to hard-to-staff locations
  • targeted recruitment agency support to attract quality candidates
  • incentives of $9,000 to join or re-join the Victorian early childhood workforce for eligible professionals.

To support workforce development and retention, early childhood professionals have access to a range of free career development opportunities. These include:

  • conferences for first-year teachers
  • communities of practice for second- and third-year teachers
  • coaching and mentoring support for provisionally registered teachers and experienced teachers and educators returning to the sector
  • Early Years Learning Networks for teachers in leadership roles to share professional expertise.

Experienced teachers and educators can also develop their coaching and mentoring skills through a new professional learning program.

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