40,000 more infant and childcare places to be available over next 5 years
A preschool teacher with children. (File photo: TODAY)
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SINGAPORE: The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) will work with five anchor operators to open up nearly 40,000 new infant and childcare places in Singapore from 2025 to 2029.
This will include about 6,000 new infant care spots to cater to increased demand and it comes as part of ongoing efforts to enhance access to affordable and quality preschools in Singapore.
Announcing the move at the Early Childhood Celebrations event on Saturday (Nov 2), Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli said this will ensure that government-supported preschools can cater to 80 per cent of preschoolers in the medium term, up from the over 65 per cent currently.
As announced during this year's Budget, full-day childcare fee caps at anchor and partner operators will be reduced by S$40 to S$640 and S$680 (US$510) per month respectively from Jan 1, 2025.
From Dec 9, 2024, all lower-income families with a gross monthly household income of S$6,000 and below will also qualify for the maximum amount of childcare subsidies for their income tier.
"This means that parents can expect to pay S$3 to S$115 or up to 2 per cent of their income for childcare at (anchor operators), with further reductions in 2025," said Mr Masagos.
"I am happy to announce that this move will take effect from December this year. More than 17,000 additional children can benefit from this move."
A new process to make preschool subsidy application more convenient will be rolled out in phases from Dec 9.
With it, parents will be able to apply for subsidies directly to ECDA digitally, instead of through preschools, via the LifeSG application.
GREATER AUTONOMY FOR PRESCHOOLS
A revised Singapore Preschool Accreditation Framework (SPARK) will also be implemented from January 2025.
This is to give preschools greater autonomy and ownership in developing and providing quality child-centric programmes, said ECDA in a news release on Saturday.
"Recognising the diverse early childhood landscape, SPARK 2.0 adopts a validation approach where preschools self-appraise their quality against standards and indicators set out in the new SPARK tool prior to seeking ECDA’s validation," the agency said.
"Instead of specifying what preschools have to do, the quality standards and indicators prompt preschools to reflect on the intent and design of their programmes and activities in relation to their aspired goals, as well as children’s profiles and needs."
SPARK was introduced in 2011 as a framework to raise the sector’s quality. Today, around 1,000, or 60 per cent of preschools are SPARK-certified.
This revision aims to encourage preschools to develop programmes tailored to children’s needs and the preschools’ unique strengths, said ECDA.
The framework will also be streamlined to focus on five key criteria instead of eight, to encourage preschools to prioritise continuous improvement of practices rather than focusing on getting the certification.
"Furthermore, instead of a compulsory certification renewal after six years, ECDA will work closely with preschool operators to oversee preschools’ conduct of self-appraisals and implementation of improvement plans to continually raise the quality of their centres," said ECDA.
"This reflective practice seeks to foster a culture of ownership among preschools and educators, motivating them to evaluate their practices to drive high-quality, child-centric approaches thoughtfully."
UPDATED CODE OF ETHICS
The code of ethics has also been updated by the Association for Early Childhood Educators Singapore (AECES) to reflect recent developments and practices. This was done in collaboration with ECDA and with input from the sector.
While primarily intended for both early childhood and early intervention educators, the revised code is also extended to pre-service educators and preschool operators.
The revised code will more clearly outline educators' professional responsibilities towards stakeholders, such as the children, families and community.
It also comes with a five-step ethical decision-making process accompanied by case studies to help educators apply the code to their daily practice.
In September 2023, operator Kinderland was fined S$5,000 for an incident at its Woodlands Mart branch, after a video of alleged abuse emerged online. It was fined the same amount this February for another similar incident at its Sunshine Place branch.
"The Code will guide educators in making ethical decisions, even amidst complex situations, by providing a common set of guiding principles in their conduct towards the different stakeholders," added ECDA.
"Over time, ECDA hopes that this effort would foster greater trust and confidence between educators and parents."
On Saturday, 27 early childhood educators, early intervention professionals and centres were honoured at the ECDA Awards 2024 for their contributions to the sector.
More than 160 preschools are recognised this year for achieving the SPARK certification.
