Number of Childcare and Infant Care Spaces with Existing Capacity but Face Shortage of Teachers
Ministry of Social and Family DevelopmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui’s inquiry regarding childcare and infant care spaces left unfilled due to teacher shortages, despite a 30% increase in educators over five years. Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli B M M explained that localized mismatches occur due to manpower ramping at new centers, reserved slots for progressing students, and enrollment pacing for staff training. ECDA addresses these issues by monitoring waitlists and collaborating with Anchor Operators on recruitment and internal staffing adjustments to meet high-demand areas. The Minister noted that overall capacity has grown 17%, and the government will continue to enhance professional development to attract and retain early childhood staff. These efforts aim to support ongoing sector expansion and ensure preschool demand is met through improved career progression initiatives for educators.
Transcript
66 Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui asked the Minister for Social and Family Development what is the current number of childcare and infant care spaces with existing capacity but are unable to be filled due to the lack of teachers.
Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M: Through various efforts to step up hiring and improve the career proposition of the early childhood sector, the number of early childhood educators nationally has grown by more than 30% in the past five years. This has helped to support expansion of overall preschool capacity, which has grown about 17% in the same time period, in line with the increasing demand for preschools.
To ensure that preschool demand can be met, ECDA monitors the licensed preschool capacity, enrolments, and waitlists in each Planning Area. In some Planning Areas, there are mismatches between demand and supply for preschool. This could be due to various reasons, depending on the context of each preschool. Manpower is one reason, especially for new preschools that have to ramp up their operations and manpower over a period of time before they can operate at full capacity. Some preschools may also set aside places for children who will be progressing from the younger classes within the centres and incoming children who have registered to be enrolled in the next few months. Finally, preschools could choose to pace new enrolments to help children settle into a new environment, cater time for their staff to be trained, or establish the necessary processes and learning environment in accordance with licensing requirements.
To address localised mismatches, ECDA works closely with the Anchor Operators (or AOPs) to meet preschool needs in areas with high preschool demand, including the hiring of early childhood educators. Over the years, ECDA has actively worked with the AOPs and other preschool operators to step up recruitment through local as well as online job fairs. The AOPs are also looking into diverting manpower internally so that their preschools can be more responsive to local demand.
We will continue to require more educators to support sector expansion in the coming years. To attract more to join the growing early childhood sector and better retain our educators, ECDA will continue to enhance initiatives to improve the professional development and career progression of early childhood educators.