Free pre-school will include means testing

AN ENTITLEMENT to a minimum of 15 hours pre-school education will inevitably lead to some form of means testing, Education's deputy minister has said.

The States will be asked to approve a scheme in principal by the end of this year.

Andrew Le Lievre, pictured, said it was a project the whole board was passionate about. However, little progress had been made on defining how it would work and how it would be funded.

Deputy Le Lievre agreed that the entitlement would inevitably require some form of means testing.

'But what kind of means testing? You can have the very invasive means testing as we see for those claiming supplementary benefit or we could have a less invasive tax-based system,' he said.