Tasmania has backed off of a plan to start all kids in school at age three and a half, leaving it out there as an option for parents starting in 2020.  But an education expert says there's plenty of evidence that parents really should take advantage of the opportunity.

"We're talking about play-based early learning, we're not talking about formal school where you sit people at desks and talk at them," said Oxford University Professor Ted Melhuish, noting that the UK enacted a similar program in 2004 with great success.  "What we've found in the UK is good-quality preschool experiences have long-term effects on children's educational outcomes, so I would anticipate this will be a contributing factor to improving educational outcomes in Tasmania," he told the ABC.

Tasmanian parents have been slow to embrace the idea of sending kids to school at an earlier age than in years past.  Some are so dead-set against the change that thousands of them signed a petition addressed to Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff to make their feelings known.

Professor Melhuish says the UK embraced the idea of providing 15 hours of play-based preschool education for children aged three years old:  "Ninety-seven per cent of parents took it up," he said, "Within a couple of years, every political party had swung wholeheartedly behind this move."