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Newslines Radio: Giving Indigenous kids the best start in life

Children and Schooling

Early childhood education is essential for all Australian children to ensure they get the very best start in life.

Early childhood education is essential for all Australian children to ensure they get the very best start in life.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced last month that the Closing the Gap early childhood target that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander four-year-olds in remote communities will have access to early childhood education, will be met this year.

In this Newslines Radio program we hear from prominent Aboriginal people in the early childhood sector about why they believe early childhood education is so important.

Yamba’s Playtime presenter Jacinta Price explains that preschool aged children are at a time in their life when they’re able to soak up the most information and that one of the best tools she’s found to help them learn is music.

Magabala Books CEO Michelle Broun talks about the importance of giving children access to books as early as possible, and that by using stories that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids can relate to, they’ll learn more quickly.

Geraldine Atkinson, deputy chair of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, wraps up the program with her views about how early childhood education ensures children are socially and emotionally prepared to cope with school.

Find out more

Ensuring all Indigenous children have access to quality childhood education is a key priority under Closing the Gap.

In her Closing the Gap: Prime Minister’s Report 2013,  Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that this year the first Closing the Gap target will be met: ensuring all Indigenous four-year-olds living in remote communities have access to early childhood education within five years, or by 2013.