我們還從家長那裡了解到，孩子在嬰幼兒時期是最具挑戰性的時期。為了更好地支持家長照顧嬰兒，政府將與服務提供商合作，推出嬰兒託管服務，為家長提供另一種照顧選擇。我們將提供資金，使家長能夠負擔得起託兒服務。為確保嬰幼兒得到妥善照顧，幼兒保育署將進行背景調查，並要求經營者符合服務要求，以確保嬰幼兒的安全。幼兒保育署還將與經營者合作，共同制定行業標準。這包括規定什麼是安全的託兒環境，以及經營者和託兒所各自的責任。
有發展需求兒童的家長也需要更多的支持，以幫助他們的孩子充分發揮潛能。要做好這項工作，家長需要掌握在家中提供早期干預支持的技能。因此，我們將推出一項 "早期干預--關愛"（EIPIC-Care）試點項目，這是一項針對兩到三歲有發展需求兒童的看護者的培訓計劃。對於有更高需求的兒童，我們將繼續增加政府資助的名額，以滿足需要中高水平早期干預支持的兒童的需求。
(用英語）：正如馬善高部長所分享的，我們所有人都必須發揮自己的作用，以實現我們的願景，即建設一個關愛家庭的社會和一個 "齊心為了家 "的新加坡。
我們看到許多志願者與專業人員一起為有需要的家庭提供支持。瑪莎（Marsha Hernatasha）女士和齊斯蒂娜（Qistina Mohamed Nasir）女士是朋友，她們是幼兒培育輔導計劃（KidSTART）園藝奇觀項目的義工。作為義工，她們負責接待 KidSTART 家庭、包裝和分發禮品袋，並在講故事環節中與孩子們互動。瑪莎女士和齊斯蒂娜女士認為，志願服務是做善事和回饋幼兒家庭的好機會。我們將 2024 年定為 "歡慶義工年"，讓我們感謝並認可志願者的貢獻、努力和犧牲。
我們致力於支持我們的父母和准父母，讓他們放心，每個孩子在新加坡都能有一個良好的人生開端，並能公平地獲得人生進步的機會。
以下是英文質詢內容：
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY – HEAD I (MINISTRY OF SOCIAL AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT)
(Building a caring and inclusive society together)
The Chairman: Minister of State Sun Xueling.
The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Ms Sun Xueling): Mr Chairman, I thank Members for their views.
The Government is committed to providing every child with a good start in life. Preschools play an important role in supporting our children's development while meeting parents' caregiving needs. This is an important part of our vision in realising a Singapore Made for Families.
Ms Yeo Wan Ling and Assoc Prof Jamus Lim asked how we will make preschools accessible and affordable for families. The Government provides funding to Anchor and Partner Operators to ensure that they keep within fee caps, while investing in quality improvements. The Government also provides all parents with basic subsidies, as well as additional subsidies for eligible families. Currently, lower-income families can pay as low as $3 per month for childcare in an Anchor Operator preschool. This comprehensive approach to preschool affordability, where we keep fees charged for Government-supported preschools low and provide childcare subsidies to parents, is more effective than giving vouchers.
We will further enhance preschool affordability in the coming years. As announced by Deputy Prime Minister Wong in his Budget speech, we will further reduce childcare fee caps at Anchor and Partner Operators by $40 in 2025. After subsidies, a middle-income working household with monthly income of $8,000, will pay $208 for full-day childcare at an Anchor Operator preschool from 2025, around 18% less from what they pay today.
We will make a final reduction in 2026. This will help us to achieve our 2019 National Day Rally commitment where families enrolled in Anchor Operators pay similar expenses to that of primary school and after-school student care, before means-tested subsidies. We are also on track to increasing the number of Government-supported preschool places so that 80% of preschoolers can have a place in a Government-supported preschool by around 2025, up from over 65% today.
Mr Melvin Yong asked how we will continue to attract and retain early childhood educators to support the sector. The well-being of our educators is important to us. Our educators dedicate themselves to the nurturing of our children and play a critical role in driving the quality of care and education for our young children.
ECDA has been enhancing the career proposition of early childhood educators. We announced the Continuing Professional Development Roadmap in 2021 and the Leadership Development Framework as well as salary improvements in 2022. We will continue to monitor and review to ensure educators' salaries remain competitive.
We are also improving the working conditions and well-being of educators. From 2024, similar to Primary Schools, Teacher's Day and Children's Day will be designated as preschool holidays. The existing six days of preschool closure have also been repositioned as "Development Days" to give educators dedicated time to focus on their individual and team development. From 2025, childcare centres are no longer required to operate on Saturdays. With this, preschool teachers will have an additional half-day of rest every week.
To attract more Singaporeans to the sector, ECDA is relaunching the "Shape Our Tomorrow" campaign in 2024 to strengthen the public's understanding of the early childhood (EC) sector and recognise EC educators as a respected profession. Since its launch in 2018, the number of EC educators has increased by more than 30% to 25,000.
Ms Carrie Tan also suggested the SPARK certification process be reviewed to reduce educators' workload. SPARK is an accreditation framework to guide preschools in raising their quality, such as in the areas of teaching and learning and administration and management of centres. The number of SPARK-certified preschools has been growing over the years and stands at 1,000 preschools or 58% of the sector today.
ECDA is reviewing SPARK and plans to roll out the refreshed SPARK certification in 2025 to set the next bound of quality for our preschools. To reduce workload on educators, we are exploring various ways to keep the work required for SPARK certification manageable, such as streamlining requirements and tapping on technology to reduce the documentation and administraton work involved.
Ms Tin Pei Ling touched on child safety in preschools. Preschools must be a safe and nurturing environment for our children. ECDA ensures that our educators have the necessary qualifications and skills to effectively and safely care for and educate children. Besides basic screening requirements and health declarations, all educators must meet the academic, professional and language requirements before they can be certified by ECDA and deployed in our preschools. As part of these requirements, educators must undergo training programmes where they learn classroom management strategies.
ECDA also regularly updates the training curriculum of the teachers. We have recently made it clearer with more specific examples on what constitutes inappropriate behaviour to guide our educators. There are also regular sector-wide briefings and circulars to update educators on the latest research and teaching pedagogies.
Where there is negligence from operators, ECDA will take them to task with regulatory fines and levers. Where individual teachers have committed offences, they will be charged by the Police and punished under the Children and Young Persons Act and/or the Penal Code. ECDA's powers are enforced through the Early Childhood Development Centres Act. ECDA will review enforcement levers and fines currently stipulated through the ECDC Act and will not hesitate to enhance the levers through legislative changes to take errant operators to task. We are working on this right now even as I speak.
