Budget: Help for Early Childhood Education

Today's news feature on 4 key areas that affect the early childhood education in Singapore positively, which is indeed very good news!

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1. From July, low-income families will get more help to pay for kindergarten and childcare fees. Low-income families with monthly income of S$1,500 or less will receive at least 95 per cent in subsidies under the ComCare Centre-based Financial Assistance Scheme for Childcare (CFAC) and the Kindergarten Financial Assistance Scheme (KiFAS), subject to a dollar cap.

2. More resources will also be set aside to raise teaching standards in pre-schools. These include scholarships and bursaries to help childcare and kindergarten teachers upgrade professionally. From April 2009, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic will offer new diploma courses in early childhood education. Temasek Polytechnic will also start a new part-time training course for existing pre-school teachers from October.

3. The Ministry of Education will introduce a new diploma called the Advanced Diploma for Kindergarten Education, or ADKET. The 10-month course will focus on the educational aspects of teaching children at pre-school, especially curriculum knowledge and teaching methods. This differs from the broad-based Specialist Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education programme which spans approximately two to three years. The course will start in April 2009 and will provide up to 100 training places initially.

4. Last year, it was announced that 200 new childcare centres will be developed over the next five years, adding to the 749 currently in the market.