Levelling Up Opportunities, Improving the Quality of Pre-School Education and Increasing Participation in Pre-Schools

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Improving the Quality of Pre-School Education and Increasing Participation in Pre-Schools

1. The Ministry of Education (MOE) is making further efforts to improve the quality of pre-school education, through the rollout of a targeted reading programme for pre-school children and an English language proficiency course for pre-school teachers. These are in addition to the measures introduced by MOE since 2000 to improve the quality of pre-school education, such as developing a curriculum framework, introducing training and qualification requirements for teachers, and accrediting teacher training courses.

2. MOE and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) are also working with grassroots organisations to reach out to families who do not send their children to pre-school to encourage them to do so. This outreach programme targets to cut the percentage of children not attending pre-school by at least half in the next 5 years, from the existing 5% to 2.5%. This is aimed particularly at children from lower income families.

3. Children from lower income families tend to lack reading material, writing experiences, and opportunities for speaking and listening to the English language at home. To help children from such home environments level up, MOE has been working with 10 neighbourhood kindergartens on a prototype of the Focused Language Assistance in Reading (FLAiR) project since mid 2006. From July 2007, FLAiR will be extended to a total of 90 neighbourhood kindergartens, including the 10 kindergartens involved in the prototype project.

4. Under the FLAiR project, trained personnel, called Pro-FLAiRs[1], provide focused assistance to 2nd year kindergarten (K2) children who have problems with English, as identified by their kindergarten teachers. These trained personnel will be with the children from March to November in K2. They will help the children in speaking, reading and other uses of English daily through dedicated time on a one-to-one basis or in small groups.

5. Between August and November 2006, a total of 82 K2 children were placed in the FLAiR prototype project. Evaluation reports from the teachers and principals of the kindergartens showed considerable progress made by their children after a few months of participating in the programme. Teachers also reported that these children had attained a greater level of confidence in participating in class discussions and language activities.

6. MOE will be extending FLAiR to more neighbourhood kindergartens which have a higher number of children with such needs. MOE will be inviting these kindergartens to come on-board the project. MOE will also provide for the training of Pro-FLAiRs.

7. For many pre-school children, the kindergarten is the place where they are first introduced to English, and teachers need to be good role models so that they can facilitate and effectively nurture the children’s development in language and literacy skills. MOE will implement a part-time English Language proficiency course for kindergarten teachers to develop their confidence and competence in speaking and writing Standard English. It will be a 40-hour course over 10 weeks.

8. This course aims to train about 2,000 kindergarten teachers over 3 years. MOE and the Workforce Development Agency are working out the funding support for the course. The course will start from the second half of 2007 onwards and more details will be released at that time.

9. This course is in addition to what the Government has already put in place as the minimum qualifications for kindergarten teachers: All kindergarten teachers will be required to obtain the Certificate of Pre-school Teaching and 25% of all kindergarten teachers will be required to have a Diploma in Pre-school Education-Teaching by January 2008.

10. The vast majority of parents in Singapore recognise the value of pre-school education. Approximately 95% of children have received formal pre-school education. A small number of families do not send their children to pre-school or are irregular in doing so for a multitude of reasons. To further reduce the number of children not attending pre-school, the inter-agency Committee on Pre-School Education, chaired by Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Education) Mr Masagos Zulkifli, with Parliamentary Secretary (Community Development, Youth and Sports), Mr Teo Ser Luck, as the Deputy Chairman, was formed in July 2006 to study the issue in greater depth, and to recommend suitable approaches to reach out to the families of these children.

11. MOE and MCYS are working with grassroots organisations in conducting an outreach programme that started in February 2007. The programme focuses on children from lower income families who do not attend pre-school and encourages them to do so. Assistance will be given to the families for placing the children in pre-school and help will be provided to parents to apply for financial assistance, if necessary.

12. MOE will also work with all primary schools this year to identify children who are not attending pre-school at the point of the Primary 1 registration exercise. This serves as another means to identify children who do not attend pre-school before Primary 1. Parents of these children will be assisted in obtaining places in pre-schools, where help will be provided to the children to adjust to the learning environment. A pilot project in 12 primary schools was conducted in 2006, where MOE and Self-Help Groups collaborated to reach out to children who had not attended pre-school to do so for a few months before they attended Primary 1.

13. To support the grassroots organisations in their outreach to families, MOE also provides them with information on kindergartens and financial assistance schemes.

[1] Pro-FLAiRs possess certificates or diplomas in education or are specially trained to help children read better. They are trained to observe children closely so as to ascertain how best to help children improve their language and literacy abilities.