Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli today announced the providers of a new service that will help community preschools better manage their operations.

Mr Piccoli said the NSW Government has invested $1 million in the Cluster Management Trial for community preschools, which was a recommendation of the Review of NSW Government Funding for Early Childhood Education by Professor Deborah Brennan in 2012.

“The Community Child Care Cooperative will be offering cluster management services across both the Sydney metropolitan and New England areas, the Samaritans Foundation will offer these services in Newcastle and CareWest will be offering them in the Central West of NSW,” Mr Piccoli said.

“The two year trial aims to reduce the burden on volunteer committees that are often under pressure to deal with matters including business planning, fee collection, marketing, staffing and fundraising.

“These responsibilities often cause legal issues and penalties if compliance standards are not met.

“Having one organisation to manage the administration of these functions for a number of preschools will help improve efficiencies and transfer successes from one preschool to others.”

The responsibility of managing governance and compliance matters currently falls to a community preschool’s director, especially when there is frequent turnover of management committee members.

“Cluster management aims to free-up our qualified early childhood teachers so they can spend more time engaging with children, families and staff,” Mr Piccoli said.