On March 6, 2024, Minister of State for Home Affairs and Ministry of Social and Family Development of Singapore, Sun Xueling, answered questions from relevant MPs on infant and child care and pre-school education in Parliament.
The following is a translation of the Singapore Eye based on Parliamentary sources:
Build a caring and inclusive society
(Childcare, preschool education)
Chair: Minister of State Sun Xueling.
Minister of State for Home Affairs and Ministry of Social and Family Development, Suset Ling: Mr. President, I would like to thank Members for their comments.
The Government is committed to providing every child with a good start in life. Pre-school education plays an important role in supporting children's development, while also meeting the care needs of parents. This is an important part of our vision of Made For Families.
Ms Yeung Chun-hwan and Assoc Prof. Lim Chi-wai asked how we would make pre-primary education accessible and affordable for families. The Government provides funding to major operators and partner institutions to ensure that they do not exceed the fee cap, while providing funding to improve the quality of education. The government also provides a basic allowance for all parents and an additional allowance for eligible families. Currently, the minimum childcare fee for low-income families in the "major operator" pre-school is S$3 per month. This comprehensive approach to the problem of the burden of pre-primary education, by keeping the government-supported pre-school fees low while providing parents with childcare subsidies, is more effective than issuing vouchers.
In the coming years, we will further increase the affordability of preschool education. As announced by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his budget submission, we will further reduce the childcare fee cap for "major operators" and "partner operators" by S$40 in 2025. After deducting the subsidy, middle-income working families earning S$8,000 per month will pay S$208 for full-time childcare at the "main operator" pre-primary institution from 2025, about 18% less than now.
We will make the last cut in 2026. This will help us deliver on the promise of the 2019 National Day Rally that families attending Primary Operators pre-primary schools will pay similar fees to primary and after-school student care before receiving the means-tested subsidy. We are also on track to increase the number of places in government-funded pre-school education, with 80 per cent of pre-school children enrolled in government-funded pre-school institutions by around 2025, compared to more than 65 per cent today.
Mr Yeung asked how we will continue to attract and retain early childhood educators to support the growth of the industry. The well-being of educators is very important to us. Our educators are committed to nurturing children and play a vital role in improving the quality of early childhood care and education.
The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has been enhancing the career proposition of early childhood educators. In 2021, we published our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Roadmap and in 2022 we published our Leadership Development Framework and Compensation Improvement Measures. We will continue to monitor and review to ensure that educator pay remains competitive.
We are also improving the working conditions and welfare of educators. From 2024, Teachers' Day and Children's Day will be designated as pre-school holidays, similar to primary schools. The existing six-day preschool closure days have also been repositioned as "Development Days" to give educators dedicated time to focus on individual and team development. From 2025, nurseries are no longer required to be open on Saturdays. In this way, preschool teachers have an extra half day off per week.
In order to attract more Singaporeans to join the early childhood education industry, the Early Childhood Development Agency will relaunch the "Shaping Our Tomorrow" campaign in 2024 to enhance the public's understanding of the early childhood education industry and recognise that early childhood educators are a respected profession. Since its launch in 2018, the number of early childhood education workers has increased by more than 30% to 25,000.
Ms. Tan also suggested that the process of the preschool accreditation framework should be reviewed to ease the workload of educators. This accreditation framework is designed to guide pre-school institutions in improving their quality, for example in teaching and learning, as well as in the administration and management of the centre. The number of pre-school institutions accredited by pre-school education has increased year by year, and has now reached 1,000, accounting for 58% of the total number of pre-school institutions.
The Early Childhood Development Agency is conducting a review of the Singapore Accreditation Framework for Pre-primary Education (SPARK) and plans to launch an updated SPARK accreditation in 2025 to set a new quality standard for our pre-primary education. To ease the workload for educators, we are exploring ways to keep the work required for preschool accreditation manageable, such as streamlining requirements and leveraging technology to reduce the paperwork and administrative work involved.
Ms. Chan Pui Ling spoke about the safety of children in pre-school settings. Pre-school institutions must provide a safe environment for children to nurture. ECDA ensures that our educators have the necessary qualifications and skills to care for and educate children effectively and safely. In addition to the basic screening requirements and health claims, all educators must meet academic, professional, and linguistic requirements in order to be certified by the Early Childhood Development Agency and assigned to work in our preschool facilities. As part of these requirements, educators must undergo a training course to learn classroom management strategies.
The Early Childhood Development Department also regularly updates the teacher training curriculum. More recently, we've guided our educators more clearly with more concrete examples of what inappropriate behavior is. In addition, the Ministry of Education holds regular briefings and circulars to inform educators of the latest research findings and pedagogies.
If the operator neglects his duties, the ECDA will impose regulatory fines and penalties. If an individual teacher commits an offence, the police will charge and punish him or her under the Children and Young Persons Act and/or the Penal Code. The powers of ECCE are implemented through the ECDC Act. The Early Childhood Development Agency will review the enforcement methods and fines currently provided for in the Preschool Education Development Centre Act (ECDC Act) and will not hesitate to strengthen these measures by amending the legislation in order to impose penalties for non-compliant operators.
We assure parents that if there is evidence of irregularities by the operator and/or educator, the Early Childhood Development Agency and the police will immediately investigate, suspend work that may harm the child educator, and bring them to justice. Parents who suspect that their child is being mismanaged should report it to the Early Childhood Development Agency and the Police so that an investigation can be carried out promptly and appropriate measures can be taken.
At the Singapore Together Together, we also heard many Singaporeans share their love and expectations for their children. At the same time, some also shared the difficulties and anxieties they experienced in parenting, especially the parents of babies. Many parents explain that the most challenging period is the first 18 months, as parents adjust to a new stage of life that juggles both baby care and work.
As Minister Ma Shangao mentioned, for children aged three and above, preschool can be said to be the best option, which can not only meet the care needs of parents, but also support the holistic development of children. For children under the age of three, it is important for them to build nurturing relationships with carers and for carers to be responsive to their needs.
Nowadays, most Singaporean parents prefer to take on this role, taking care of the baby themselves or relying on the help of family members. Mr. Yeung Yik Choi and Ms Huang Lingling asked how we can better support parents in caring for their babies. As stated in the Singapore Together Movement movement, the government will consider how to further increase paid parental leave.
Currently, about one out of every five babies is enrolled in these infant care centres, and we plan to increase the number of centre-based infant care places by about 70%, or 9,000 places, by 2030 to make this type of care accessible to more parents. To complement these efforts, the government will work with service providers to launch a three-year pilot in the second half of 2024 to provide affordable and reliable babysitting services. This will provide parents with an alternative care option.
Parenting sister-in-law (some of us might refer to it as a "babysitter") is not a new concept. In the seventies and eighties of the last century, this kind of service was more common in Singapore. Some nannies take care of a few children in their own home, while others go to someone else's home to take care of the children. Nowadays, this is less common because parents may not know where to look for a trusted sister-in-law, or they may find that the cost of a sister-in-law is relatively high compared to other forms of care such as baby care centers.
Last year, during my working visits to Denmark, France and the United Kingdom, I learned that these countries already have requirements in place, such as background checks for childcare sisters-in-law, and financial support for parents, such as subsidies, to make childcare services more accessible to parents. In this way, parents have more flexibility to choose what works best for them based on their care needs and preferences. For example, parents may prefer to have a more organized environment during working hours. This way, they can choose a baby care center for their baby. And those parents who prefer more flexible hours or more personalized care in a home setting can opt for babysitting services.
Therefore, we will be undertaking a pilot project to designate childcare providers and work with them to expand childcare services in Singapore. Under the pilot program, each childcare provider can care for up to three babies at a time at a home or in a community setting. Community spaces, such as community centres, will be located in areas with high infant care needs so that parents can easily access childcare services. Parents can also be more flexible in discussing their childcare preferences and requirements with caregivers.
To ensure that families can afford babysitting services, ECCE will provide funding to designated operators to make it affordable for parents who use the service during working hours. Our goal is to make the cost of childcare similar to what middle-income families pay for infant care in "major players" pre-school institutions. We will also expand the use of the Child Development Account to further cover the cost of childcare under this pilot.
We know that safety is a key consideration for parents when deciding on infant care arrangements. In order to provide parents with more security in this pilot, the Early Childhood Development Agency will conduct background checks on operators and nannies, and require operators to meet certain service requirements. These service requirements include: assessing the suitability and accommodation of the babysitter, developing a Child Safe Care Act and guidelines for the responsibilities of the babysitter, disclosing information about the babysitter to parents, establishing incident management processes, and ensuring that the caregiver receives the necessary training in areas such as basic infant care, first aid training, and food safety and hygiene.
The Early Childhood Development Agency will also work with operators to develop industry standards. This includes stipulating what constitutes a safe childcare environment and the respective responsibilities of the operator and the childcare center. This will ensure basic service standards for the designated operators and help to improve the overall standard of the childcare industry.
Through the pilot, we can assess parents' acceptance of childcare. As this is a new pilot project, we have invited parents, childcare providers and childcare providers to participate and listen to their input to help us refine the parameters. We will continue to carry out such activities and announce more details in the second half of 2024.
Mr Ngan asked how we could support these parents to help their children reach their full potential.
Children with developmental disabilities have different unique needs and need different types of support. Some children can be supported in kindergarten, while others may need to receive more specialized intervention at centres that offer the Early Infant Intervention Program (EIPIC).
International studies have also shown that parents are best equipped to embed interventions related to social and emotional skills in their children's daily lives. To do this well, parents need to have the skills to provide early intervention support at home. That's why we're launching the EIPIC-Care pilot project, a training program for caregivers of children with developmental needs between the ages of two and three. Over the course of six months, caregivers will learn from professionals how to support their child's development at home through group workshops and individual tutoring sessions.
The Early Childhood Development Agency plans to launch a pilot project of "Early Infant and Toddler Intervention Programme – Care" in the second half of 2024. For children who need more support, we have been increasing government funding slots to meet the needs of children who need moderate to high level of early intervention support. In 2023, we will launch 13 private sector-run Early Childhood Intervention Programmes – Care Centres and 2 Early Infant and Toddler Intervention Programme Centres to increase the number of places by 1,200. This is a 26% increase from 2022.
In 2024, we will launch four more early intervention centres, adding 1,500 places. We will continue to expand government-funded places to serve 80% of children in need of moderate-to-high level early intervention by 2027, up from 60% in 2022. This will help reduce the overall wait time to enter an early intervention centre so that children with developmental needs can receive timely support.
In order to provide stronger financial support to families of older children with special needs, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced in his budget presentation that the cost of special education schools and special student care centres will be made more affordable for families. We will lower the fees we pay so that out-of-pocket expenses as a percentage of household income are closer to those of normal growth peers. For example, a family with a monthly household income of S$6,000 will have their out-of-pocket child care centre fees reduced by one-third, from S$500 to about S$340.
Ms. Pan Qinqun asked about the application of restorative justice in spousal violence cases. As families move through milestones in their lives, we want to build strong families that ensure that parents are empowered to build safe havens for their children.
Unfortunately, some families are not safe when domestic violence occurs. To strengthen the protection of survivors of violence, we introduced the Family Violence (Amendment) Bill in Parliament last year. The amendment also strengthens the government's power to rehabilitate perpetrators, which is essential to help families reconcile survivors once they have been protected and safe.
Our social service practitioners also provide support to families at risk of harm or experiencing violence to address the root causes of violence and work with survivors and perpetrators to heal and restore relationships as much as possible. Support for these families includes counselling. Family members, including children, can attend these counseling sessions to heal trauma and restore family relationships, provided it is safe to do so.
However, if it is not possible to restore family relations in the short term, we will not hesitate to take resolute measures. This includes exercising the full power of the law to bring perpetrators to justice and ensure safety and protection for survivors. Mr. President, I will speak in Mandarin.
(Mandarin): Family is the cornerstone of our society. We want to give parents and intended parents more peace of mind when it comes to caring for their children. We want to give every child a great start in life. This is an important part of our vision of "Together for Home" in Singapore.
We will continue to make preschool more accessible and affordable for families. In 2025, we will further reduce the childcare fee cap by S$40 for major operators and partner institutions. We will have a final downward revision in 2026. We will also increase the number of places in government-supported pre-school education so that 80 per cent of pre-school children can be educated in government-supported pre-school institutions by 2025. From 2025 to 2030, we will continue to maintain this 80%.
We also learned from parents that the infancy and toddler years are the most challenging times for children. To better support parents in caring for their babies, the government will work with service providers to launch baby care services to provide parents with an alternative care option. We will provide funding to make child care affordable for parents. To ensure that infants and toddlers are properly cared for, the ECCE will conduct background checks and require operators to meet service requirements to ensure the safety of infants and toddlers. ECCE will also work with operators to develop industry standards. This includes stipulating what constitutes a safe childcare environment and the respective responsibilities of the operator and the childcare center.
Parents of children with developmental needs also need more support to help their children reach their full potential. To do this well, parents need to have the skills to provide early intervention support at home. That's why we're launching an EIPIC-Care pilot project, a training program for caregivers of children with developmental needs between the ages of two and three. For children with higher needs, we will continue to increase the number of government-funded places to meet the needs of children in need of mid- to high-level early intervention support.
(in English): As Minister Ma Shangao shared, we must all play our part to realise our vision of a family-friendly society and a Singapore that is "Together for Home".
We see many volunteers working with professionals to support families in need. Ms Marsha Hernatasha and Ms. Qistina Mohamed Nasir are friends and volunteers are volunteers at KidSTART's Gardening Wonders program. As volunteers, they host KidSTART families, pack and distribute gift bags, and interact with children during storytelling sessions. Ms. Martha and Ms. Zistina believe that volunteering is a great opportunity to do good and give back to families with young children. We have designated 2024 as the "Year of Celebrating Volunteering" and let us thank and recognize the contributions, efforts, and sacrifices of our volunteers.
We are committed to supporting our parents and intended parents and reassuring them that every child has a good start in life in Singapore and has fair access to opportunities for life advancement.
The following is the content of the question in English:
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY – HEAD I (MINISTRY OF SOCIAL AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT)
(Building a caring and inclusive society together)
The Chairman: Minister of State Sun Xueling.
The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Ms Sun Xueling): Mr Chairman, I thank Members for their views.
The Government is committed to providing every child with a good start in life. Preschools play an important role in supporting our children’s development while meeting parents’ caregiving needs. This is an important part of our vision in realising a Singapore Made for Families.
Ms Yeo Wan Ling and Assoc Prof Jamus Lim asked how we will make preschools accessible and affordable for families. The Government provides funding to Anchor and Partner Operators to ensure that they keep within fee caps, while investing in quality improvements. The Government also provides all parents with basic subsidies, as well as additional subsidies for eligible families. Currently, lower-income families can pay as low as $3 per month for childcare in an Anchor Operator preschool. This comprehensive approach to preschool affordability, where we keep fees charged for Government-supported preschools low and provide childcare subsidies to parents, is more effective than giving vouchers.
We will further enhance preschool affordability in the coming years. As announced by Deputy Prime Minister Wong in his Budget speech, we will further reduce childcare fee caps at Anchor and Partner Operators by $40 in 2025. After subsidies, a middle-income working household with monthly income of $8,000, will pay $208 for full-day childcare at an Anchor Operator preschool from 2025, around 18% less from what they pay today.
We will make a final reduction in 2026. This will help us to achieve our 2019 National Day Rally commitment where families enrolled in Anchor Operators pay similar expenses to that of primary school and after-school student care, before means-tested subsidies. We are also on track to increasing the number of Government-supported preschool places so that 80% of preschoolers can have a place in a Government-supported preschool by around 2025, up from over 65% today.
Mr Melvin Yong asked how we will continue to attract and retain early childhood educators to support the sector. The well-being of our educators is important to us. Our educators dedicate themselves to the nurturing of our children and play a critical role in driving the quality of care and education for our young children.
ECDA has been enhancing the career proposition of early childhood educators. We announced the Continuing Professional Development Roadmap in 2021 and the Leadership Development Framework as well as salary improvements in 2022. We will continue to monitor and review to ensure educators’ salaries remain competitive.
We are also improving the working conditions and well-being of educators. From 2024, similar to Primary Schools, Teacher’s Day and Children’s Day will be designated as preschool holidays. The existing six days of preschool closure have also been repositioned as “Development Days” to give educators dedicated time to focus on their individual and team development. From 2025, childcare centres are no longer required to operate on Saturdays. With this, preschool teachers will have an additional half-day of rest every week.
To attract more Singaporeans to the sector, ECDA is relaunching the “Shape Our Tomorrow” campaign in 2024 to strengthen the public’s understanding of the early childhood (EC) sector and recognise EC educators as a respected profession. Since its launch in 2018, the number of EC educators has increased by more than 30% to 25,000.
Ms Carrie Tan also suggested the SPARK certification process be reviewed to reduce educators’ workload. SPARK is an accreditation framework to guide preschools in raising their quality, such as in the areas of teaching and learning and administration and management of centres. The number of SPARK-certified preschools has been growing over the years and stands at 1,000 preschools or 58% of the sector today.
ECDA is reviewing SPARK and plans to roll out the refreshed SPARK certification in 2025 to set the next bound of quality for our preschools. To reduce workload on educators, we are exploring various ways to keep the work required for SPARK certification manageable, such as streamlining requirements and tapping on technology to reduce the documentation and administraton work involved.
Ms Tin Pei Ling touched on child safety in preschools. Preschools must be a safe and nurturing environment for our children. ECDA ensures that our educators have the necessary qualifications and skills to effectively and safely care for and educate children. Besides basic screening requirements and health declarations, all educators must meet the academic, professional and language requirements before they can be certified by ECDA and deployed in our preschools. As part of these requirements, educators must undergo training programmes where they learn classroom management strategies.
ECDA also regularly updates the training curriculum of the teachers. We have recently made it clearer with more specific examples on what constitutes inappropriate behaviour to guide our educators. There are also regular sector-wide briefings and circulars to update educators on the latest research and teaching pedagogies.
Where there is negligence from operators, ECDA will take them to task with regulatory fines and levers. Where individual teachers have committed offences, they will be charged by the Police and punished under the Children and Young Persons Act and/or the Penal Code. ECDA’s powers are enforced through the Early Childhood Development Centres Act. ECDA will review enforcement levers and fines currently stipulated through the ECDC Act and will not hesitate to enhance the levers through legislative changes to take errant operators to task. We are working on this right now even as I speak.
3.00 pm
We give our assurance to parents that where there is evidence that operators and/or educators have been errant, ECDA and the Police will commence investigations immediately, suspend educators who are in a position to harm children and take them to justice. Parents who suspect that their child has been subjected to child mismanagement should report to ECDA and the Police, so that investigations can be swiftly carried out, investigations are not compromised and due process can be taken.
During the Forward SG engagements, we also have heard many Singaporeans share their love and aspirations for their children. At the same time, some have also shared about the struggles and anxieties that they faced in raising their children – especially from parents of infants and parents of children with developmental needs. Many parents explained that the most challenging period was during the first 18 months, as parents are adapting to a new phase of life to care for an infant while juggling work responsibilities.
As mentioned by Minister Masagos, for children aged three and above, preschools can be the best option to meet parents’ caregiving needs while supporting the child’s holistic development. For children below three years, what is important is for them to build nurturing relationships with significant caregivers and for caregivers to be responsive towards their needs.
Today, most Singaporean parents prefer to play this role and care for infants themselves or rely on the help of family members. Mr Melvin Yong and Ms Ng Ling Ling have asked how we can better support parents in caring for their infants. As mentioned in the Forward SG report, the Government will consider how paid parental leave can be further increased. Currently, around one in five infants are enrolled in infant care centres. We will continue to ramp up centre-based infant care.
Currently, around one in five infants are enrolled in these infant care centres and we plan to increase centre-based infant care places by about 70%, or 9,000 more places by 2030 so that more parents can rely on this care option. To complement these efforts, the Government will work with service providers to launch a three-year pilot in the second half of 2024 to provide affordable and reliable infant childminding services. This will be yet another caregiving option for parents.
Childminders, some of us may know them as “nannies” are not a new concept. They were more common in Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s. Some childminders look after a few children in their own homes while others travel to a family’s home to look after the child. They are less common today, as parents may be unsure of where to look for trusted childminders or they may find childminding relatively more expensive as compared to other caregiving options, such as infant care centres.
Last year, in a work visit to Denmark, France and the UK, I learnt that these countries have put in place requirements, such as background checks on the childminders and financial support to parents, such as subsidies, to make childminding more accessible to parents. Parents can then have greater flexibility to choose what is best for them in terms of their caregiving needs and preferences. For example, parents may prefer a more structured setting during working hours. They may then opt for infant care centres for their infants. Those who prefer more flexible hours or more individualised care in a home-setting may for opt for infant childminding.
We will thus launch a pilot and appoint childminding operators and work with them to expand infant childminding services in Singapore. Under the pilot, each childminder will be allowed to care for up to three infants at any one time, at their homes or at a community space. Community spaces, such as community centres, will be in areas of high infant care demand so that parents can conveniently access childminding services. Parents also have more flexibility to discuss their care preferences and requirements with the childminder.
To ensure that infant childminding services are affordable to families, ECDA will provide funding to appointed operators to keep the out-of-pocket expenses affordable for parents who use the service for their infants during typical working hours on weekdays. We aim to make parents’ expenses for childminding services similar to what a middle-income family pays for infant care at their Anchor Operator. We will also extend the usage of CDA to further defray the cost of childminding under the pilot.
We understand that the safety is a key consideration for parents when deciding the care arrangements for their infants. To give parents more assurance under this pilot, ECDA will conduct background checks on operators and childminders and require operators to meet certain service requirements. These service requirements include: (a) assessing the suitability and homes of the childminders; (b) putting in place guidelines for child-safe practices and responsibilities of childminders; (c) disclosing childminders’ profile to parents; (d) establishing processes for incident management; and (e) ensuring that childminders undergo required training in areas, such as basic infant care, first aid training and food safety and hygiene.
ECDA will also work with operators to co-develop industry standards. This includes laying out what constitutes a safe childminding environment and the respective responsibilities of operators and childminders. This will ensure baseline service standards across the appointed operators and help to uplift the childminding sector in general.
The pilot will allow us to assess the receptiveness of parents to infant childminding. As this is a new pilot, we have engaged parents, childminders and childminding operators to hear their views to help us refine the parameters. We will continue such engagements and announce more details in the second-half of 2024.
Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked how we will support parents of children with developmental needs to help their child reach their full potential.
Children with developmental challenges have diverse and unique needs and require different types of support. Some can be supported in their preschools, while others may require more specialised interventions at centres providing Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC).
International studies have also shown that parents are in the best position to embed intervention related to social and emotional skills in their children’s daily lives. For parents to do this well, they will need to be equipped with the skills to provide early intervention support at home. This is why we will be introducing an EIPIC-Care pilot, a training programme for caregivers of two- to three-year-olds with developmental needs. During the six-month programme, caregivers will learn from professionals through group workshops and individual coaching sessions on how to support their child’s development at home.
ECDA plans to launch the EIPIC-Care pilot in the second half of 2024. For children who require more support, we have been increasing the number of Government-funded places for children requiring medium to high levels of early intervention support. In 2023, we launched 13 EIPIC-P centres, which are operated by private providers; and two EIPIC centres, to increase our capacity by 1,200 places. This is a 26% increase from 2022.
In 2024, we will launch four more early intervention centres and increase our capacity by 1,500 places. We will continue to expand our Government-funded places to serve 80% of children requiring medium to high levels of early intervention by 2027, up from 60% in 2022. This will help to reduce overall wait times for enrolment into an early intervention centre so that children with developmental needs can receive timely support.
To provide stronger financial support for families of older children with special needs, Deputy Prime Minister Wong announced in his Budget speech that we will make Special Education (SPED) Schools and Special Student Care Centres (SSCC) more affordable for families. We will reduce the fees paid to bring the proportion of household income paid for out-of-pocket expenses closer to that of their typically developing peers. To illustrate, families with a monthly household income of $6,000 will see one-third decrease in their out-of-pocket expenses paid for SSCC, from $500 to around $340.
Ms Hazel Poa asked on the use of restorative justice in cases of spousal violence. As families navigate various milestones in their life journey, we want to build strong families and ensure parents are equipped to build safe havens for their children.
Unfortunately, some families are not safe when violence happens at home. To strengthen protection for survivors of violence, we moved the Family Violence (Amendment) Bill in Parliament last year. These provisions also strengthen powers for the Government to rehabilitate perpetrators, which is crucial to helping families reconcile once protection and safety for survivors have been achieved.
Our social service practitioners also support families at risk of harm or who are experiencing violence to address the root causes for the use of violence and work with the survivor and perpetrator to heal and restore relationships where possible. Support for these families would include counselling. Family members, including children, may attend these counselling sessions to achieve healing and restoration of family relationships where it is safe to do so.
However, we will not hesitate to take firm measures when such restoration is not possible in the immediate term. This includes exercising the full powers of the law to take the perpetrators to task and to ensure the safety and protection of the survivors. Mr Chairman, in Mandarin, please.
(In Mandarin): Families are the bedrock of our society. We want to give parents and parents-to-be greater assurance in the caregiving of their children. We want to provide every child with a good start in life. This is an important part of our vision in realising a Singapore Made For Families.
We will continue to make preschools more accessible and affordable for families. We will further reduce childcare fee caps at Anchor and Partner Operators by $40 in 2025. We will make a final reduction in 2026. We will also increase the number of Government-supported preschool places, so that 80% of preschoolers can have a place in a Government-supported preschool by 2025. We will continue to maintain this 80% from 2025 to 2030.
We have also heard from parents that the most challenging period was during their child’s infancy. To better support parents in the care of infants, the Government will work with service providers to launch an infant childminding service to provide another caregiving option for parents. We will provide funding to keep the childminding service affordable for parents. To ensure that the infants are well cared for, ECDA will conduct background checks and require operators to meet service requirements to ensure safety of the infants. ECDA will also work with operators to co-develop industry standards. This includes laying out what constitutes a safe childminding environment and the respective responsibilities of operators and childminders.
Parents of children with development needs also require greater support to help their child reach their full potential. For parents to do this well, they will need to be equipped with the skills to provide early intervention support at home. This is why we will be introducing an EIPIC-Care pilot, a training programme for caregivers of two- to three-year-olds with developmental needs. For children with higher needs, we will continue to increase the number of Government-funded places for children requiring medium- to high levels of early intervention support.
(In English): As Minister Masagos shared, all of us must play our part to realise our vision of a family-friendly society and a Singapore Made for Families.
We have seen many volunteers who have worked alongside professionals to support our families in need. Ms Marsha Hernatasha and Ms Qistina Mohamed Nasir are friends who are volunteers together for KidSTART Garden Wonders. As volunteers, they welcome KidSTART families, pack and distribute goody bags and engage the children during the storytelling sessions. Ms Marsha and Ms Qistina sees volunteering as an opportunity to do something good and give back to families with young children. As we dedicate 2024 as the Year of Celebrating Volunteers, let us appreciate and recognise the contributions, effort and sacrifice of our volunteers.
We are committed in supporting our parents and parents-to-be, so that they are assured that every child can have a good start in life in Singapore and that they have fair access to opportunities to progress in life.
CF丨Editor
Edited by CF丨
Singapore Parliament丨Source
Singapore Parliament丨Source
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