An additional 40,000 infant and child care places will be available over the next 5 years

SINGAPORE: The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) will work with five anchor operators to open nearly 40,000 new infant and child care places in singapore from 2025 to 2029.

This will include around 6,000 new childcare places to meet increased demand and comes as part of ongoing efforts to improve access to affordable and quality preschool in Singapore.

Announcing the move at the Early Childhood Celebrations event on Saturday (November 2), Social and Family Development (MSF) Minister Masagos Zulkifli said it would ensure government-supported preschools can cater for 80% of preschoolers in the medium term , increasing. from the more than 65 percent currently.

As announced in this year’s Budget, full-day childcare fee caps at anchor and partner operators will be reduced by $40 to $640 and $680 ($510) per month respectively from January 1, 2025.

Starting December 9, 2024, all lower-income families with a monthly gross household income of $6,000 or less will also qualify for the maximum amount of child care subsidies for their income level.

“This means parents can expect to pay between $3 and $115 or up to 2% of their income for childcare at (anchor operators), with further reductions in 2025,” Mr Masagos said.

“I am pleased to announce that this move will take effect from December this year. Over 17,000 additional children can benefit from this move.”

A new process to make applying for the preschool grant more convenient will be rolled out in stages from 9 December.

With this, parents will be able to apply for grants directly to ECDA digitally, instead of through kindergartens, through the LifeSG app.

GREATER AUTONOMY FOR PRESCHOOLERS

A revised Singapore Preschool Accreditation Framework (SPARK) will also be implemented from January 2025.

This is to give preschoolers greater autonomy and responsibility in developing and delivering quality child-centered programs, ECDA said in a press release on Saturday.

“Recognizing the diverse landscape of early childhood, SPARK 2.0 takes a validation approach where preschoolers self-assess their quality against the standards and indicators set in the new SPARK tool before seeking ECDA validation,” the agency said.

“Rather than specifying what preschools should do, quality standards and indicators prompt preschools to reflect on the intent and design of their programs and activities in relation to their aspirational goals, as well as children’s profiles and needs.”