COS Debate 2007 - 8th Reply by SPS on Pre-School Education

FY 2007 Committee of Supply Debate
8th Reply by Senior Parliamentary Secretary on Pre-School Education

INTRODUCTION

1. I thank the honourable MPs for their thoughtful questions on pre-school education.

DIRECT OUTREACH EFFORT

2. The vast majority of parents recognise the value of pre-school education and an estimated 95% of children receive formal pre-school education. The reasons why the remaining 5% of parents do not send their children to pre-school are not straightforward.

3. Dr Amy Khor, Mdm Ho Geok Choo and Dr Lily Neo have asked about measures to help lower-income families to send their children to pre-school and to reach out to them. Our own data indicates that pre-school education is particularly helpful in allowing children from low income families and non-English speaking families to catch up with their peers.

4. To help these children, I am therefore glad to announce that the grassroots organisations have embarked on an effort to reach out to their families. Starting from February this year, grassroots leaders have started conducting visits to families with children not attending pre-school, to share the benefits of pre-school and encourage them to send their children there. For more straightforward cases where the parent needs financial assistance or a place in a pre-school, the grassroots will assist accordingly. For more complex cases, more customised solutions will be required, including directing the families to seek help from social service agencies. The grassroots are also bringing in other members of the community to encourage these families, including the Self-Help Groups. MOE and MCYS will work closely with the community to support them in this effort directed at all children from all races.

5. This exercise is primarily intended to reach out to 5-year old children, to provide them with one and a half years of pre-school. For children that the community is not able to successfully reach out to through this effort, we will provide another net to catch them just before P1. In 2006, the Self-Help Groups had collaborated with MOE on a pilot project in 12 primary schools to identify 6-year olds that were not attending pre-school during the P1 registration exercise. The Self-Help Groups reached out to their families and encouraged them to send their children to pre-school for the remaining part of the year.

6. One of these children, Wan Ni, had been identified during the P1 registration exercise and subsequently enrolled in a kindergarten in August before starting P1. While Wan Ni had initially not been comfortable speaking English when she first joined the kindergarten, by the time she entered P1 a few months later, she was able to follow her lessons. Wan Ni was also able to communicate with her teacher in simple English. While it will be beneficial to have the children placed in pre-school earlier, this exercise to encourage the remaining children to attend pre-school even at the point of the P1 registration is still valuable. MOE will therefore be extending it to all primary schools this year.

7. The effort by the community to persuade parents to send their children to pre-school will be difficult. Some of these families may not be contactable. It may be even unpleasant to have to convince some parents to send their children to pre-school. Some families may have problems so deep-rooted that it will require a long process to work through solutions with them. Hence, it will not be immediately possible to convince every parent to place his child in pre-school. Through the efforts of the community, we will aim to reduce the number of children not attending pre-school by at least half in the next 5 years.

AFFORDABILITY AND QUALITY OF PRE-SCHOOL

8. Sir, once we get these children into pre-school, we must then ensure that pre-school is affordable and of a good quality. I would like to update the House on the Government’s continuing efforts to ensure this.

9. Mr Yeo Guat Kwang had previously asked if pre-school education can come under MOE. Parents currently can choose from a wide variety of pre-schools. This diversity is healthy. It allows for innovation and different types of programmes to develop from these pre-schools for children with different needs. Instead of taking over the pre-school sector and taking away this diversity, what the Government has chosen to do is to play an active role to ensure its accessibility, affordability and quality.

10. The Government provides development funding to eligible kindergartens and childcare centres. MOE also provides recurrent funding to eligible kindergartens to improve their quality and has provided around $62 million to date. This injection of funding from the Government helps to keep pre-school fees affordable.

11. Specifically and in addition for children from lower income families, there are Government financial assistance schemes, including the Kindergarten Financial Assistance Scheme (KiFAS) and the Centre-based Financial Assistance scheme for Childcare (CFAC). Each year, around 16,000 children benefit from around $16 million worth of financial assistance, and the Government has just announced further increases in subsidies under both schemes. Families can also tap on community-based financial assistance schemes, such as the Education Trust Fund that was established by Mendaki.

12. To Mrs Josephine Teo’s question, there is also Government funding to help middle-income families. All families receive a subsidy of up to $150 per month per child for childcare. Parents can also use the Baby Bonus Scheme. The Government’s cash gift of between $3,000 to $6,000 per child is more than sufficient to pay for two years of kindergarten fees. Parents can also use their Children Development Account, or CDA. Based on what parents contribute to the CDA, the Government contributes a matching amount. For instance, if middle income parents put $25 a month in the CDA for the first 4 years for their child, the matching amount from the Government would enable them to pay $100 each month in fees for pre-school later. To date, the Government has contributed around $270 million. In turn, 69% of the activated CDAs have already been used for kindergarten and childcare fees.

QUALITY OF PRE-SCHOOL

13. The Government also plays an active role in helping to improve the quality of pre-school. The Government has set minimum requirements for the qualifications of pre-school principals and teachers to ensure that they are trained for the job. To Mr Teo Ser Luck’s question, MOE has also formulated a kindergarten curriculum framework, and almost 90% of kindergartens have adopted this framework. Since 2003, more than 7,000 teachers have attended workshops conducted by MOE to help with the drawing up of the curriculum.

14. Mr Wee Siew Kim would be glad to know that one of the developmental areas emphasised in MOE’s framework is helping children to acquire self and social awareness. Self awareness includes teaching children to be aware of their feelings, and being able to communicate these feelings to adults. Social awareness includes learning how to work and play in a group. Pre-school teachers therefore also receive training in these areas through MOE’s workshops.

15. Through these efforts, the pre-school sector has made significant strides in quality over the years. In 2000, an estimated 31% of pre-school teachers were certificate or diploma-trained, and 14% of principals diploma-trained. Since minimum requirements were introduced by MOE, 82% of pre-school teachers are now certificate or diploma-trained, and 70% of principals diploma-trained. Pre-school centres are also adopting innovative new curricula and programmes. To quote a recent article from the Straits Times, there “is a real buzz in the pre-school scene here”.

ENHANCEMENTS TO PRE-SCHOOL SECTOR

16. MOE is continuously reviewing how we can further improve the quality of pre-school education. I am pleased to inform Mrs Josephine Teo that we have started to place relevant information about kindergartens on our website, which would be important to parents in deciding which kindergarten to send their children to. We currently indicate the kindergartens that have trained principals. Starting from April this year, we will also indicate the kindergartens that have met our requirements for trained teachers. We are further exploring additional types of information that we can include, such as the Pupil-Teacher Ratio.

17. Another initiative that MOE has been working on is to assist kindergarten pupils with English. In August last year, MOE introduced a project called the Focused Language Assistance in Reading, or FLAiR, in 10 neighbourhood kindergartens. This was to provide intensive assistance in the English Language to selected K2 children, to address a difficulty faced by children from lower-income families, who may not have sufficient exposure to English at home.

18. At these kindergartens, trained personnel, or Pro-FLAiRs, worked with these children on a daily basis. The children received intensive attention from these teachers to help them to develop their confidence in using English. 82 children benefited from this pilot project and we found that these children demonstrated significant improvement. MOE will therefore be extending FLAiR to more kindergartens starting from July. We hope to be able to reach out to around 1000 children each year. We will focus on extending FLAiR to children from lower-income families as these are the children that need the most help.

19. Both the outreach effort and FLAiR programme are part of the intervention programs we have implemented more upstream during the preschool years, with an aim to reduce the risk of attrition in school later.

20. To uplift the quality of spoken English of pre-school teachers, MOE will also be implementing an English Language proficiency course for them. This will help to strengthen the foundation in English Language received by our children during their pre-school years. As you know, they are very impressionable at that age. The course aims to train about 2,000 teachers over 3 years.

CONCLUSION

21. The quality of the pre-school sector has steadily improved over the years. The vast majority of children also receive pre-school education. MOE will continue to review our efforts. In particular, pre-school education can play a role in helping to level up children from lower-income backgrounds. MOE will therefore pay even greater attention to ensure that children from lower-income backgrounds are able to access high quality pre-school education. I hope that the community will rally around these efforts, and all do our part to encourage these families to send their children to pre-school as a first step.

22. Thank you.