Governance of Student Care Centres and Minimising Disruptions in Event of Abrupt Centre Closures

3 Mr Shawn Loh asked the Minister for Education (a) whether the Government currently audits the financial viability and operational sustainability of Student Care Centre (SCC) operators; (b) if so, how are such audits conducted; and (c) whether the Government intends to improve its governance processes over SCCs to avoid future abrupt closures, to reduce the risk of disruptions to children, parents, and staff.

4 Mr Shawn Loh asked the Minister for Education in relation to the interim plan for the Ministry’s schools and teachers to continue student care centre operations following the abrupt closure of private student care centre operator in February 2026, how does the Government plan to recognise these extra efforts and ensure that the Ministry’s teachers are not further overworked.

5 Dr Hamid Razak asked the Minister for Education (a) what regulatory safeguards are in place to ensure continuity of student care centres when they cease operations abruptly; (b) whether there are framework level requirements on financial governance, contingency planning and parent fee protection; and (c) how the Ministry assesses operator resilience to minimise disruption to students, parents and staff.

6 Mr Shawn Loh asked the Minister for Education in relation to the abrupt closure of Little Professors student care centres, how the Government plans to assist in the recovery of salary payments due to staff and the recovery of GIRO payments unfairly deducted from parents.

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, my response will address Question No 3 through to Question No 6 on today's Order Paper.

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, my answer will also address related oral or written questions filed for subsequent Sittings on the recent issues with Little Professors Learning Centre Pte Ltd (LPLC), a former operator of Student Care Centres (SCCs) and Kindergarten Care (KCare) centres in our schools.

Sir, the Ministry of Education (MOE) was first alerted to the issues at LPLC centres in February this year. Our first priority was to minimise the disruption to students and their families, and to ensure that students enrolled in the LPLC-operated SCCs and KCare centres continued to receive care after school.

Our schools have stepped in to provide interim after-school support. School staff have been deployed on a rotational basis to bridge the gap since the incident first happened. Over the past three weeks, schools have engaged relief manpower, including retired school staff, flexi-adjunct teachers and external instructors, to fill the staffing needs and to reduce the need for continued deployment of school staff. Parent support groups in some schools have also stepped in to provide additional support. MOE headquarters (HQ) officers have been providing onsite assistance and have helped to relieve the administrative load on schools.

All affected schools have been able to continue providing after-school care for students. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all who have stepped in to help. I know that the children and their families are also appreciative of the care and concern. School staff who have put in additional contributions during this interim period will be recognised.

MOE has started sourcing for new SCC and KCare operators to provide after-school care for the students in the affected schools. We want the new operators to start as soon as possible.

MOE is also concerned about former LPLC staff who have been adversely affected. We are working with the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Education Services Union (ESU), who are supporting affected workers with short-term financial relief, job referrals and career guidance through NTUC’s e2i. MOE and schools have also been able to employ and pay former LPLC staff in their original centres if they are keen to do so, until a permanent operator is appointed. This will provide some financial stability for these affected staff in the interim, while they continue to care for our students.

Affected LPLC staff have also been advised to reach out directly to the Ministry of Manpower, the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management or the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board to file claims for unpaid salaries and CPF contributions.

With reference to the unauthorised General Interbank Recurring Order (GIRO) deductions, MOE has filed a police report when these were reported to schools in February. We had at that point also advised affected parents to cancel their GIRO arrangements immediately and to consider filing a claim with the Small Claims Tribunal. As police investigations are ongoing, I am not able to comment further on this issue. Pending the outcomes of police investigations, we will work with relevant agencies to see how we can further support parents.

Members have asked about our selection and monitoring mechanisms for SCC and KCare operators.

As part of the selection process, operators have to demonstrate adequate financial standing before they are considered. After they are appointed, MOE and schools maintain oversight over operators and monitor their performance in terms of how well they are providing the SCC and KCare services. These monitoring processes are reviewed regularly so that we can continue to improve our safeguards.

We also value parents’ direct feedback about our SCC and KCare centres so that issues can be addressed in a timely fashion. Today, parents can provide feedback to SCC and KCare staff, to the schools, and directly to MOE. In 2025, MOE directly received a total of 212 emails and phone calls providing feedback on SCCs and KCare centres. We reviewed all of them and followed up with the schools and operators when needed.

Before this incident with LPLC, MOE has not had cause to terminate the services of any school-based SCC and KCare operator.

Nevertheless, we do recognise that there is room for improvement within the sector to provide better services, to strengthen the resilience of operators and to better monitor the service provision. We are further reviewing our processes for selecting and monitoring SCC and KCare operators.

Mr Speaker: Mr Loh.

Mr Shawn Loh (Jalan Besar): Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I declare that I am the advisor to the Education Services Union that looks after the affected teachers. Second, I declare that I am the advisor to the Singapore Teachers Union, that looks after the teachers who stepped in to help. And third, I declare that Hong Wen school, which is one of the affected schools, is in my constituency. And to that end, I asked not one, not two, but three parliamentary questions (PQs) on the matter.

When I visited Hong Wen school the day after the closure, I was glad to see the parents' support group and the teachers coming in to make sure the kids had the continuity of care. They told me that the incident was regrettable, but possibly preventable. So, my two supplementary questions, Mr Speaker, are about how we can prevent these incidents from happening again.

First on MOE's due diligence, both before an operator is appointed, and during the operations. What levels of safeguards can we expect MOE to implement to ensure that operators with financial standing are appointed? And during operations, that they continue to be in good financial standing, so that we are assured of the sustainability of the operations. This is conceptually no different from how other Government procurement entities, such as those in the built environment sector, look at the largest contractors and vendors of the Government.

The second and final question is on MOE's whistle-blowing policies. Because parents in our Whampoa and Boon Keng estates told me that they had given feedback about the deteriorating quality of the student care centre last year. So, when MOE said that they only found out about it in February this year, the parents told me that this did not gel with the feedback they had given. Whistle-blowing allows us to have this early signal, so I hope that MOE could also consider how we could look at early signals to avoid a situation where MOE and parents and children and staff are caught off guard in the future.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Mr Loh for his questions and for his efforts in his capacity, both in that school that he mentioned, as well as with the union.

On his first question about due diligence, the levels of safeguards associated with the financial standing of the operator – these are assessed at the point of the application, the tender, when the operator submits a tender to have the licence to operate the centre at the schools. We do indeed have a series of items that we look at, including the capitalisation of the company, the financial reserves, the depth of their governance and so forth.

He is asking then about whether we have means to do so during the course of the operations. Since January 2025, all the contracts that have been awarded require then a yearly submission of audited financial statements. And so then, we continue to have oversight of this process.

It is an evolving series of mechanisms. We await the investigations as to what happened in this incident and we will see whether there are lessons learnt that will inform us about whether we need to put in further mechanisms, going forward.

On whistle-blowing, indeed, we do have a variety of channels. As I have explained, the parents can feedback directly to the operator, to the schools and to MOE HQ. We went back and looked at the complaints or feedback – not all of them were complaints – about Little Professors over the last year. And there were a variety of things. Indeed, some of the feedback was about, for example, the quality of food, another child's behaviour to a parent's child, reports on services or the teachers and we also had a couple of reports from the teachers as employees.

There was nothing untoward in the feedback that we have received from Little Professors and nothing different from what we had seen across other operators.

We did indeed have a serious incident in February of this year and as soon as that information was made available to MOE, we started to take action. And we had as our first priority, stepping in to provide care for the children, and then subsequently, when there were some issues to do with the finances highlighted, we have made a police report and that matter is under investigation.

Mr Speaker: Dr Hamid Razak.

Dr Hamid Razak (West Coast-Jurong West): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. One of the affected schools, Westwood Primary, is also in my constituency. I want to thank the staff and the volunteers for stepping up in this uncertain period. I ask these questions in the spirit of improving the systemic resilience of the sector – the first one being, will the Ministry include a review of its current operators and consider a strategic partnership to have a whitelist of operators that could step in if one ceases to operate, so that we do not have to activate our teachers, who already have increased workload. That is the first one.

The second one alludes to the same early warning trigger system that hon Member Shawn Loh mentioned earlier – whether we can have a broader view of some of these triggers which could include both operational and financial aspects; for example, if a centre rapidly expands across the island, or if we see that staff are being laid off, on top of just the routine reporting that these centres currently do.

And thirdly, are there ways to also ensure that parents' fees are also safeguarded? Most of the parents who came to see me in my Meet-the-People Session were truly worried about recovery of their deposits. Could we weave in, perhaps one of the factors could be ring-fencing parents' fees or deposits in a client's account or by way of some form of an insurance that the providers could purchase to protect parents' deposits? These are my supplementary questions.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Dr Hamid Razak for his suggestions. I think they are all good suggestions. We are reviewing, not just this incident, but the sector as a whole and we do want to improve. We want to improve the resilience of the operators within the sector. We want to improve the service provision for our students and we want to improve parents' confidence in the operator and the care that their children are receiving.

The Member had made a couple of suggestions. The first, in terms of systemic resilience, looking at some form of whitelist or strategic partnership with an operator or operators. It is something worth considering. And the idea that perhaps, we might develop capability in partnership with an operator so that there is a systemic resilience, not just an operator resilience, should another incident occur, whether we would have the capability then to rely on such an operator to step in, and not only on the MOE staff and the parent support groups, and all the other people who helped.

I would like to take this opportunity to once again appreciate very much that we did have so many people who were able and willing to help and did so very effectively, so that there was no interruption in the care that our children had.

He suggested another set of ideas about operational and financial monitoring of the operators to pick up in advance, if such a thing occurs. Actually, in general, MOE and the schools work very closely with the operators. We have ongoing discussions, we know the staff very well, we integrate on some programmes and services. There have been issues over the years that we have had to deal with. Some operators, maybe staff are sick or face staff shortage, or perhaps the business issues that we have to think about. For most of the operators, we actually have a fairly close relationship, and hence, we have not had an anxiety about whether we were not aware about what was happening within the operator. But I take his point that perhaps, we need a mechanism to give us systemic confidence that we have sight into the finances and operations, such that we would have an early warning, if there was a resilience issue of a given operator.

We are studying the sector and we will see if we can find ways to introduce such mechanisms, including, for example, how an operator manages their staff; which I think is something that we have to take very seriously.

His third suggestion about the parents' fees, indeed, that is an anxiety that many parents will have about the deposits that they have paid. The double GIRO deductions that were reported were indeed returned. The double GIRO deductions that were reported to MOE before February this year, that happened last year, were indeed returned to the parents. And so, it is the later round of double deductions which required a police report. And then now, for many parents, there is the issue of the deposits that they have paid, which they have not been able to claim back yet. The matter is still under investigation and we will see how best we can assist those parents, and then see what is the appropriate mechanism going forward to restore parents' confidence in the operators in this space.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim. I know you have filed a PQ on this. Yes, go ahead.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Thank you, Speaker. Sir, like many others, I have residents who have been affected by this in my constituency.

My question has to do with the pursuit of recourse by many of these. I understand that Senior Minister of State mentioned that the way that they should proceed is by going to the Small Claims Tribunal. But given how collective the nature of those who were affected by this are, I wonder if there is some manner in which the Government will assist with coordinating this process of claims, rather than have individuals try to seek out Small Claims Tribunal, especially for parents who are not well-versed in matters of the law.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, the situation is still developing and investigations are ongoing. We will find ways to assist the affected families and parents.

Mr Speaker: Last supplementary question, Dr Wan Rizal.

Dr Wan Rizal (Jalan Besar): Sir, I thank the Senior Minister of State for sharing on the efforts done by MOE and working together with the unions and Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) to support both the teachers and of course, the parents in this process too.

I have also raised the concern whereby the teachers are now given extra load to do interim supervisory duties. How will MOE ensure that such stopgap measures do not become normalised or prolong, such that it affects their workload and how can we make sure that those teachers who are currently on those workload are recognised formally and they can be added into the additional responsibilities?

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Dr Wan Rizal for his question. I express my deep appreciation for the teachers who have indeed stepped in to care for the students. We do recognise that this is in addition to their workload and that will be recognised by the schools as well. The operational way in which we relieve that workload will vary from site to site. The principals and the site conditions of, for example, the Little Professor staff who have chosen to stay on, or external staff who have been able to come in – means that it is not exactly the same from site to site. So, exactly what the teachers have to do and the intensity of the workload will vary. So, we have to take an operational approach, but our intent is indeed for the teachers then to focus on their primary duties and where possible for us then, to relieve them of these duties.

MOE HQ staff have stepped in to relieve administrative burdens. I have given the example of parent support groups that have volunteered to assist and we have employed the existing former Little Professor staff, as well as external staff to then come in, in the interim, while we are pending the operator to be appointed.

To ensure that this does not ever happen again, well, those are the issues that we have talked about in the previous supplementary questions, that we are reviewing the sector and we will look to see whether we have mechanisms that we can detect earlier, respond faster and perhaps, have better resilience across the system.

But I think the fact that we had such an incident for the first time, a student care operator collapsing in this way, if you like, unable to provide services, and yet across all eight schools, we had a continuity of care and a continuity of service provision – I think it is a testament to the professionalism and capability of our education staff and the entire ecosystem of stakeholders that are involved. And I once again would very much like to thank them for that.