Opposition Leader Bill Shorten announced a $1.75 billion funding boost on Thursday which will guarantee access to subsidised preschool for around 700,000 children a year.

The Labor plan continues an existing federal package to subsidise preschool for four-year-olds, but it ramps up the funding to extend the scheme to three-year-olds in the name of lifting education results.

Early childhood education and care providers Big Fat Smile and the Australian Education Union are among many groups who have thrown their support behind universal childcare access.

Big Fat Smile CEO Jenni Hutchins said she was excited about the “biggest investment in early childhood education in Australia”.

“It levels the playing field by reducing the barriers for all Australian children to access early learning and care,” she said.

“Increasing access for our vulnerable children is a hall mark of this policy – education is a pathway out of disadvantage.”

The NSW government announced a $200 million program in June to subsidise fees for all three-year-olds enrolled in community preschools.

Read more: Government’s preschool funding announcement a ‘con-job’, says Labor

At the time Ms Hutchins said about three quarters of children in Big Fat Smile’s seven preschools and 20 early learning and care preschools missed the boat under the state scheme.

“Providing two years of funding for early learning and care means Australia has the opportunity to build the skills of tomorrow’s workforce in today’s children,” she said.

World-renowned early childhood development and policy expert Professor Ted Melhuish is the latest expert to call on Australia to increase spending on early childhood education or risk being left behind by its international trading partners and competitors.

The leading academic at the University of Wollongong’s Early Start Research said convincing Australian politicians about the benefits of early childhood education wasn’t difficult, but getting them to act on it was harder.

Prof Melhuish, who is also a Professor of Human Development at the University of Oxford, UK, said a large and growing body of research shows that quality early childhood education delivers a wide range of benefits, not just to the children involved but to society overall.

These include improved child well-being and learning, reduced poverty, increased social mobility, greater female workforce participation and increased social and economic development.

“The evidence from around the world is that when you invest in good quality early education you see improved outcomes for children in their behavioural outcomes and in their early learning and capacity to adapt to school very quickly,” Prof Melhuish said.

Read more: UOW world-first early childhood trial delivers for children and staff

Federal Member for Cunningham, Sharon Bird said subsidised preschool for three and four year olds was the critical addition needed to give children the very best start in life possible.

“All the evidence tells us that getting quality early education in place improves children's performance at school and over their lifetime,” she said.

“This is the biggest ever investment in early childhood education in Australia and I know that it will be very welcome by families, educators and service providers across the Illawarra.”