Morning mail: year of learning before school, electricity crisis flares, Fed hikes US interest rates

NSW and Victoria will offer a year of play-based learning for children before they begin school in a plan to transform early education. Photograph: svetikd/Getty Images

Good morning. NSW and Victoria are to offer a year of play-based learning for children before school officially begins. Australia’s electricity crisis continues after the wholesale market was suspended yesterday. And, in the US, the Federal Reserve has announced the biggest interest rate rise since 1994.

Victoria and NSW will introduce a new year of play-based learning for children before they go to school as part of what the state premiers have described as “the greatest transformation of early education in a generation”. The program will consist of 30 hours a week of play-based learning for all four-year-olds and will be known as “pre-prep” in Victoria and “pre-kindergarten” in NSW. The first childcare centres will open by 2025 and will charge a lower fee than many private childcare providers.