PRESCHOOL LANDSCAPE OVERVIEW

Currently, there are a total of 1,318 child care centers and 495 kindergartens in Singapore as of Q2 2016.

Child care centers provide child care services for children ranging from 18 months to 6 years old. In addition, some of the child care centers also provide infant care programs for infants from 2 to 18 months old. These centers may offer full-day, half-day and flexible programs that cater to the schedules of working parents. Out of the 100,522 enrolments in child care centers, 92,115 of them are enrolled into a full-day program.

Kindergartens provide 3 years of early childhood development programs for children between 4 to 6 years old. There are also programs available for children at the age of 2 years old, which are playgroups, nursery 1 and nursery 2. Most kindergartens allocate 2 sessions a day, each ranging from 3 to 4 hours, on Monday to Friday. The largest kindergarten operator is PCF (PAP Community Foundation) as of today.

Similarly, the child care centers and kindergartens are managed by the Early Childhood Development Agency (also known as ECDA).

The school fees charged by child care centers and kindergartens are of different rates and miscellaneous fees.

Both the child care centers and kindergartens are required to adhere to the teacher versus student ratio set by ECDA.

Regarding government subsidy, child care centers offer subsidy to children that are Singaporean citizens. The subsidy amount will differ based on the type of child care service, status of employment of mothers, and the household income. Further subsidy will be provided to children obtaining Community Care Fund.
On the contrary, there is no subsidy offered to kindergarten programs. However, there is a financial assistance scheme available for families eligible for KIFAS.

WHY SHOULD CENTRES EMBARK ON THE PRESCHOOL CAPABILITY JOURNEY?

We believe that the Preschool Centres need to be recognized on their efforts made towards the provision of good quality education and care for children. As a business entity, it is important to understand the overall health check for the organization whereby there is an evaluation of a center’s strengths and areas of improvement. We understand the various challenges met by the preschool centers and therefore the initiative of Preschool Capability Journey. The objective of the journey is to assist preschool centers to eventually obtain an endorsement of the quality of a preschool and its program. The team will assist preschool in exploring the five core aspects namely Virtual Front makeover, Marketing Strategy, Holistic automated solutions, Curriculum Building and Central Depositary for portfolio or resources and last but not least Human Capability Building where the important of educators being the asset of the organization.