Provision of Student Care Centres and Standard Requirements for Private Operators

1 Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what are the plans to provide student care centres (SCC) in Yishun South including pre-school centres; (b) what are the minimum criteria for private SCCs' operations to ensure that they provide acceptable standards of service; and (c) how often does the Ministry visit these centres to ensure compliance.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Mr Speaker, childcare centres provide full-day and half-day care programmes to children below the age of seven, while student care centres (SCCs) provide care and supervision to school-going children from seven to 14 years old.

At the pre-school level, there are 67 childcare centres in the Yishun planning area. About a third are within the existing Nee Soon South ward at Yishun South. To ensure continued access to quality, affordable preschools, the Government will provide about 2,000 more Government-supported places in Yishun planning area over the next few years.

For student care, there are four SCCs registered with MSF to administer the Student Care Fee Assistance (SCFA) scheme in Nee Soon South ward. Two of them are located in Primary schools and the other two in the community. Together, these four centres have enrolled about 400 students, with sufficient capacity to meet demand. In recent years, MOE has steadily increased the number of school-based SCCs. In particular, for Nee Soon South, Naval Base Primary School has had an SCC since 2007 and Peiying Primary School’s SCC was set up in 2019 to improve accessibility of SCCs. Both centres still have vacancies. MSF and MOE will continue to monitor the demand for SCC places and expand capacity where there is demand.

SCCs that wish to administer SCFA are required to register with MSF. MSF requires registered SCCs, including centres operated by private entities, to meet stipulated standards. These include standards on, among other things, providing a clean and safe physical environment with appropriately sized activity areas, observing good safety, health and hygiene practices, proper supervision of students, and a structured daily programme that supports learning and development. For example, SCC premises should have at least three square metres of space per student, and at least one SCC staff who is trained in first aid should be present at all times during opening hours.

MSF conducts audits on registered SCCs, which may include surprise checks, at least once every two years to ensure compliance with the above requirements. More frequent checks may be conducted as needed, for example to look into feedback and complaints received and where the SCC has weaknesses identified in previous audits. SCCs that do not meet requirements and fail to rectify the areas of improvement within the stipulated timeline can have their SCFA administrator status revoked.

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon): Sir, I would like to thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for his comprehensive reply. I have four supplementary questions.

First, from the feedback from my residents is that for the school-based SCCs, most of the time, my residents are told that the places are reserved for children from lower income families. Is this true? Many of those from middle income families find that they have problems getting into school-based SCCs.

The second question is, I am glad to hear that there is such a requirement of three square metres per student. I would like to ask if there are audit checks to make sure that the SCCs adhere to such a requirement. The feedback is that it is always very cramped. They have visited the private ones and they say these are always very cramped, and the children, some lie on the floor, some lie on the table; and they look like they are not very well run.

The third question is, the feedback received from private operators is that HDB releases void deck space more for childcare centres, not so much for student care operators. Is there a plan for HDB to release void deck space to private operators for SCCs?

The last question is, I understand that MOE has plans for after-school care in every Primary school. I would like to ask if there is any timeline and whether we are on schedule?

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Sir, I thank the Member for the supplementary questions and all the suggestions. Let me answer the fourth question first. I am happy to share with the Member that we are on track to have SCCs in all 185 Primary schools by 2020. So, this is good news.

As it is today, the capacity in the Nee Soon South area, in particular, exceeds utilisation. If the Member has any requests or demands from any resident from her constituency, she may like to work with us to see how we can help.

As for the question about three square metres, we do have audit checks. We have a framework where we work not only with operators, but also with parents and whenever we know there are some inconsistencies in the practices, we will be more than happy to look at it. We want to make sure that the child's time in the SCC is meaningful and has value-add, and that helps in the educational journey.

For the question about the private sector, we take note of this feedback. At the end of the day, we work with the local community and the agencies to see how we are able to meet the demand. At this point in time, in Nee Soon South, the demand is less than the capacity that we have. We will continue to see how we can facilitate this whole process of providing every child a good start in life.