Commentary: Improving S’pore’s preschool sector is everyone's business. Here's what needs to be done

Instead of dismissing this as a trivial matter, how our nation supports its young families and young children should be everyone’s business.

These centres are also obliged to undergo quality assurance assessments under the Singapore Preschool Accreditation Framework that go beyond the compulsory licensing expectations. By contrast, there are countries with direct and significant public funding of universal early childhood care and education services, especially in the northern hemisphere where personal taxes are high, including France and the Nordic countries.

The first is “childcare” which typically offers full-day service for children from 18 months of age ; while the second is the “kindergarten” programme which is usually a half-day offering that typically caters to children from around ages three to six years old. For instance, besides the licensed nurseries and other forms of preschool services, the UK has a registry of home child carers that provide ad-hoc childcare for children from one or more families.

A typically sized childcare centre with about 120 children would need at least 14 qualified teachers or assistant teachers, and a centre leader. Childcare work is both physical work and a labour of care and intentionality. Having a conducive work environment enables trained preschool teachers to be more attentive and responsive to young children, to support their curiosity and exploration.

OECD countries generally have more realistic adult-child ratios. Currently, in England, there has even been a public outcry after the government wanted to reduce the number of adults per child for two-year-olds, from the existing ratio of one adult for every four children to one adult for every five children.Ratios are just one of several factors that can worsen teachers’ loads, besides long work hours that leave no room for self-development.

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