Educational and Developmental Gains in Early Childhood (EDGE) Study: Evaluating the impact of Universal 3-year-old Kindergarten in Victoria

The EDGE Study will focus on measuring the impact of early childhood education on children’s learning and development when it starts earlier (at age 3 years) and is provided for 2 full years (rather than 1 year) prior to school. There is limited evidence internationally that reports on the impact of 2 years of universal early childhood education provided at scale. The Victorian initiative provides a rare chance to collect and link data longitudinally to generate insights and inform policy and practice decisions for the early childhood education sector nationally and internationally. As part of a broad package of early childhood service policy reforms the Victorian state government in Australia is introducing a staggered roll-out of universal provision of funded 3-year-old kindergarten in addition to the existing universal 4-year-old kindergarten program. This project will provide an evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of Victoria’s implementation of universal 3-year-old kindergarten and whether it has measurable benefits to children’s developmental outcomes. There are strong reasons to expect that two years of quality early childhood education prior to schooling is an effective strategy for boosting development, particularly of the most disadvantaged children. This project has the following key objectives: 1) To determine whether 2 years of kindergarten, compared to 1 year, prior to school measurably improves children’s developmental outcomes (cognitive, language, social-emotional and behavioural; at the end of the 4-year-old kindergarten program and up to Year 3 of primary school); 2) To determine the influence of 3-year-old kindergarten by exploring quality and access of programs on children’s developmental pathways and trajectories at the end of the 3- and 4-year-old kindergarten years; 3) To determine the range of 3-year-old kindergarten program design characteristics; how different learning environments influence the experiences of educators and children; and how programs and pedagogy differ for 3- and 4-year olds. We hypothesise that 2 years of universal funded kindergarten, compared to 1 year, prior to school measurably improves children’s developmental outcomes.