Preschool helps a child develop cognitive, physical, emotional and social skills. All these help a child build a solid and strong foundation for life.
Here’s a breakdown on how Singapore is enhancing the accessibility, affordability, and quality of early childhood care and education.
More places
Preschool places will increase. Since 2012, the number of full-day preschool places has doubled from 90,000 to 180,000. This will grow to over 200,000 in the next few years.
By around 2025, 8 in 10 children will have a place in a Government-supported preschool. This is an increase from just over 50 per cent today.
This will allow parents to find a preschool near their home more easily.
More will pay less
Currently, all families with Singapore Citizen children attending childcare and infant care programmes receive a Basic Subsidy.
Families also receive a means-tested Additional Subsidy. From this year, the income ceiling to qualify for this additional subsidy is raised to $12,000 per month, up from $7,500. This will benefit around 30,000 more households.
The amount of means-tested subsidies will increase across all eligible income tiers, with lower income families receiving higher subsidies. Here are some examples:
| What working families pay for full-day childcare at Anchor Operators, whose fees are capped at $770/month (after GST) | ||||
| Household Income | Family A $3,000 | Family B $5,000 | Family C $8,000 | Family D $12,000 |
| What families used to pay | Up to $70 | Up to $370 | Up to $470 | Up to $470 |
| What families pay after enhanced subsidies (from Jan 2020) | $3 | $130 | $280 | $390 |
In addition, the fee caps for full-day childcare at Partner Operators will be lowered from Jan 2021: from $800 per month, to $760 per month (before means-tested subsidies).
Over the longer term, these fee caps will be lowered further so that full-day childcare expenses will cost about the same as primary school fees plus after-school fees.
Supporting low-income families
Preschool Outreach Programme
Through a Preschool Outreach Programme, low-income families are encouraged to enrol their children in preschool.
Outreach workers help families to search for an affordable preschool and assist in the preschool enrolment process.
This includes guiding families with the registration process, preparing supporting documents for subsidy applications, and addressing other needs the family may have with regards to preschool enrolment.
KidSTART
The KidSTART Pilot will be scaled up. This Pilot was launched in 2016 to help children from low-income families have a good start in life.
Under KidSTART, the family is supported even before the child is born.
Parents are provided with skills and practical knowledge to nurture their children across the areas of child growth, health and nutrition.
KidSTART playgroups for toddlers allow parents to build their skills in child development and promote parent-child bonding through purposeful play.
KidSTART also supports the child’s learning and development by addressing barriers to preschool attendance, and engaging and supporting the parents.
For more information on KidSTART, click here.
