TORONTO - Thousands of four- and five-year-old children in Ontario will get a better education -- and strengthen Ontario's economy -- by going to school full time this fall, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday.

Some 580 schools across the province will offer full-day junior and senior kindergarten to about 35,000 children starting in September. The program will slowly expand to all elementary schools by 2015 at an annual cost of $1.5 billion a year.

The optional full-day program will better prepare kids for Grade 1 and beyond, which will help them land good jobs when they finish school, McGuinty said.

"President (Barack) Obama recently said, 'Those places that out-educate us will out-compete us. Those places that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow,"' the premier said from an elementary school in Chatham, Ont.

"This is what this is all about. It's about educating our children today so we can be the strongest competitors on this planet tomorrow."

Each class will include a teacher, an early childhood educator and about 26 children -- higher than the current primary class cap of 20 to 23 kids.

Parents can pay extra for child care before 9 a.m. and after 3:30 p.m., which would be staffed by early childhood educators. Those fees will be determined locally by school boards, although subsidies will be available for poor families.

Every school board in Ontario will have at least one school with full-day learning come September. Toronto will offer the program at 99 schools and Ottawa will have it at 32 schools.

McGuinty, who is moving ahead with the costly program despite an unprecedented deficit, urged patience from parents whose children won't be able to access full-day kindergarten this fall.

"We can't afford to fund all of this instantly," he said.

"So we have to do it in a reasonable and responsible way, so we're going to phase it in over a number of years."

He said there will undoubtedly be some "wrinkles" while rolling out the program.

Phasing in such an expensive program while facing a $25-billion shortfall this year shows how poorly the Liberals plan ahead, said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

"They were anxious to get some good news out the door and instead of putting in a fully acceptable program that's available to all families they've had no choice but to stagger it," she said.

"We saw six years of good economic times where this government could have made some of these things happen but instead they dragged their feet and now in the most difficult budget times is when they decide to do it."

About 15 per cent of eligible Ontario children will be able to access the program this fall, at a cost of about $200 million. The government is setting aside $300 million next year to expand the program to 50,000 kids.

Some 18,000 kids are already enrolled in full-day kindergarten at a handful of francophone and Catholic schools, which fund the programs by diverting money from other sources.

The program will require hiring 3,800 new teachers and more than 20,000 new early childhood educators over the next five years, McGuinty said.

Full-day learning will also free up about 20,000 daycare spaces in Ontario, which would allow younger children to take the place of four- and five-year-olds who will end up in elementary schools, he added.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne will sit down with the province's school boards and make sure that funding is being "properly allocated," McGuinty said.

"The purpose of this is not to impose new costs on our school board," he said. "It is to fund a new program -- to fully fund a new program."

But parents may encounter a roadblock even if their child's school has been selected for full-day learning. If a school can't accommodate the high demand for enrolment, it's up to the school boards to decide which child will get a spot.

Busing will only be provided before and after school hours, which means parents will have to make other arrangements if they want their child to enrol in the extended day programming.

Parents who don't want their children to be in school all day will also have to make their own travel arrangements at the beginning or end of their child's day. Or they can ask their school board to switch their child to another school that offers the half-day program, government officials said.

Boards that have the capacity are being told to offer the extended services outside of the regular school hours for four- and five-year-olds, including during the summer break and on professional development days and statutory holidays.

School boards are also being told to offer similar services to children aged six to 12 at other times of the year if there is enough parental demand.

Ontario currently offers half-day kindergarten for four-year-olds and five-year-olds. School is not mandatory until age six.

New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec offer all-day kindergarten for five-year-olds. Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec offer some programs for four-year-olds.

British Columbia is planning to offer full-day kindergarten to all of its five-year-olds by 2011, starting with at least half of its schools next September.

The complete list of schools is available at a government website -- Ontario.ca/EarlyLearning.

The list of schools can be found here.