Schools and Post-secondary Educational Institutions with Lactation Rooms

1 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Education (a) what percentage of (i) Primary schools (ii) Secondary schools and (iii) post-secondary educational institutions currently have at least one lactation room; and (b) whether the Ministry can make it compulsory for all schools and educational institutions to have at least one lactation room.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Ms Low Yen Ling) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, Sir, MOE is committed to providing a conducive workplace for nursing mothers. This includes providing schools with lactation facilities, which has become a standard building specification for MOE.

Today, about 85% of Primary schools, 65% of Secondary schools and 90% of Junior Colleges/Centralised Institutes have a lactation room. For the remaining schools, MOE will progressively provide lactation facilities where feasible over the next three years. Presently, all Institutes of Higher Learning, which means the Autonomous Universities, Polytechnics and Institute of Technical Education (ITE) are equipped with lactation facilities.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the reply. Can I just check whether these are specifically lactation rooms? So, it is only for the mothers to use and not just a spare room where the mothers can go in to express the milk. Secondly, can I also just check whether there is a fridge in all of these rooms so that they can store their milk after that?

Ms Low Yen Ling: Mr Speaker, Sir, I want to thank the Member Mr Louis Ng for his care and concern for mothers. As a mother of two kids, and I have breastfed my two kids for slightly over a year, I can understand what it takes to persevere in the breastfeeding journey. For example, the breastfeeding cycle and also the schedule, from expressing and then storing the milk – and the Member asked about the fridge – transporting the precious milk and also all the gadgets that are involved, especially for mothers who need to express milk in their office, workplace and in this case, in the school.

For the two questions that the Member has, I want to assure him that MOE has made it a priority to equip our teachers who are mothers and who are breastfeeding with the facility and the support that they need.

Let me be clear. Since 2010, the requirement for a lactation room was added to the building specification for Primary schools as part of the PERI upgrading. This is a standard building specification: lactation room in the school. Subsequently, the same building specification for Secondary schools and also Junior Colleges were similarly updated with the same requirement. So, yes. These are lactation rooms, not meant to be multi-purpose for other reasons.

Schools that were built or upgraded before 2010 will also be provided with a lactation room as part of their on-going or scheduled PERI upgrading for Primary schools; likewise, for the Secondary schools and the Junior Colleges, when the institutions next undergo rebuilding or major upgrading. For the lactation rooms, we will provide the necessary facilities and also the fridges; if not in the lactation room, then maybe in the Staff Lounge. We would then have to work with the teachers who are mothers and are breastfeeding to make sure that they will label the bottles accordingly.

The other thing I wish to reassure the Member is, I gave the numbers for Primary schools and Secondary schools. What is very heartening is that to-date, all our IHLs have lactation facilities. In fact, some of the bigger campuses have more than one lactation room. I want to assure the Member that MOE will certainly continue to work with the existing schools to ensure that all schools will have lactation rooms at the nearest feasible date. The target for us, really, is for every school to have lactation facilities within the next three years.

I also want to assure the Member that we in MOE appreciate the sacrifices that mothers make for their children and we will wholeheartedly support their breastfeeding journey.