Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an economic statement Sunday evening with the participation of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Education Minister Yoav Kish. In his presentation, he presented his plan for free child care for children ages 0-3.

The Prime Minister then went on to announce the launch of the first phase, which includes a grant of up to 940 NIS per month through credit points for each child in a house of working parents. Netanyahu presented their program for ages 0-3 and said at the beginning of his remarks: "We are announcing today the launch of the first phase of the free educational program from ages 0 to 3 as we promised in the elections."

Netanyahu: "Today we are launching the first phase towards free education for children up to the age of three"

Together w/ the Finance & Education Ministers, PM Netanyahu presented the first phase of the free education plan for children at the ages of 0-3, joining past… pic.twitter.com/OwUnaHAHQ7

— Adam Albilya - אדם אלביליה (@AdamAlbilya) April 30, 2023

"Our program has three main goals. The first is to lower the cost of living. The second is education. We know that by upgrading the educational system in these dormitories, we can improve the quality of the education these children receive. The third thing is to expand this system to allow supervised kindergartens for all working families in Israel."

"The net income will increase to 970 NIS per child, in the next three years, and children who are in supervised pre-k programs will receive a full subsidy, today there are about 120,000 such children in the pre-k programs, by the end of the year we will reach 160,000. Our goal in the five-year plan is to dramatically increase the number of supervised educators. We will reach the state of free education from age 0 to six. This is our plan, it will put us in the front line of the OECD countries." 

יש מנהיג בירושלים שמוביל את סדר היום, מוביל את הממשלה אל היעדים החשובים שהבטיח ומקיים. נתניהו עם ידיים חזק על ההגה חדור מטרה ועוצמתי מתמיד, מביא היום בשורה חשובה לישראל - חינוך חינם לגילאי
0-3 .
שאפו ראש הממשלה היקר 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻@netanyahu

— שרי צדוק אזולאי🇮🇱 (@sari_azoulay) April 30, 2023

Then Finance Minister Smotrich said: "As the Prime Minister said, we will invest a lot of resources to improve the early childhood education of all Israeli children. I thank Prime Minister Netanyahu and Education Minister Yoav Kish for their joint efforts to promote the program. We are investing 3.1 billion NIS for this program".

"We are now making a historic decision that is a direct response to the cost of living for parents of children ages birth to 3 by providing credit points and negative income tax, in addition to increasing the subsidy for supervised daycare centers. This is a benefit of up to 940 NIS per household for each toddler aged birth to 3. The government will invest many resources to improve the quality of the educational response in the supervised and private settings, in order to improve the quality of early childhood education for all Israeli children."