SINGAPORE - By the end of 2023, the number of locations across Singapore with lower availability of places for children in pre-schools had fallen.

This comes after efforts to increase vacancies and redirect manpower across pre-schools were made, said Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli on Feb 6.

From 2022 to 2023, the number of areas with tighter supply of places in pre-schools was reduced by more than half, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) said on Feb 9, in response to follow-up queries from The Straits Times.

“Districts with tighter pre-school supply tend to be in areas with significant injection of new housing developments,” an ECDA spokesperson said.

Media reports in 2022 cited growing demand for infant care and waiting lists in popular centres, especially in areas like Punggol and Sengkang. That year, there was a 90 per cent increase in places in infant care and childcare centres, said ECDA.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question from People’s Action Party MP Liang Eng Hwa, Mr Masagos attributed the tighter supply of infant care places in certain locations to Covid-19-related delays in pre-school construction and higher demand from families.

Mr Liang (Bukit Panjang) had asked whether the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) monitors infant waitlist numbers, the average wait time and the availability of new places for 2024 and 2025.

“ECDA has worked closely with anchor operators in such districts to expand capacity, step up recruitment efforts, and divert manpower internally so that their centres can enrol more children,” Mr Masagos said.

Anchor operators, such as PAP Community Foundation (PCF) Sparkletots and My First Skool, are pre-school operators that receive funding from the Government to keep their fees at a certain cap to ensure affordability.

Of the 14,600 infant care centre places in 2023, 72 per cent – or 10,500 spots – were taken up, said Mr Masagos.

He added that ECDA will work with anchor operators to create more than 1,500 new infant care places in 2024, while continuing to increase future supply.

Overall, the number of full-day pre-school places has doubled to 200,000 over the last decade, despite a fall in the number of babies being born in that period, said Mr Masagos in a separate reply to PAP MP Melvin Yong (Radin Mas).

To meet future demand, ECDA plans to work with the Housing Board to build more childcare centres together with Build-To-Order developments in areas with more young families, said Mr Masagos.

For older or expanding housing estates, ECDA will work with HDB and existing operators to utilise void deck and communal spaces for centre expansions if greater childcare capacity is needed, he added. 

Pre-school operators said they have plans to ramp up the number of infant care and pre-school places.

E-Bridge Pre-school, a member of the EtonHouse Group and also an anchor operator, intends to add three to four centres in 2024.

These new centres will be in Tampines, Tengah and Woodlands, and will add 200 infant care spots, a spokeswoman said on Feb 8 in response to queries from ST. E-Bridge currently has 458 infant care places.

Similarly, NTUC First Campus’ My First Skool hopes to have 30,000 spots by the end of 2024, up from 27,000 across 158 centres now, said Ms Thian Ai Ling, general manager of My First Skool. 

She added that in 2023, My First Skool added more than 3,500 infant care and childcare places in both mature and new estates, including Pasir Ris, Yishun and Woodlands.

New PCF pre-school centres will be launched in Kallang, Punggol and Fernvale in 2024, in line with the expansion of new BTO flats in these areas, said Ms Marini Khamis, senior director of PCF’s pre-school management division.

In lieu of this expansion, Mr Masagos estimated that another 1,500 educators will be needed.

“To attract and retain quality early childhood educators, ECDA has reviewed salaries to ensure they correspond with educators’ contributions and professional skills,” he said, adding that new measures like a five-day week will be introduced in 2025 to improve conditions for educators. 

He added: “Parents can also help make the profession more attractive, by appreciating the work of the educators, and having reasonable expectations on educators, such as when to expect replies to messages sent at night.”

Mr Mohammad Fadhli Fadzil, a 38-year-old civil servant, faced challenges securing infant care despite registering interest six months prior to his baby’s due date in 2023. 

“We joined some parents’ group chats for our estates and heard that most of the infant care centres around our area were already full, and the waiting list was for up to a year,” said Mr Fadhli, who moved into the Bidadari housing estate in January 2022.

Mr Fadhli subsequently registered his interest in six pre-schools across Bidadari, Potong Pasir and Macpherson, and was placed on waitlists for all of them. He also rang up two more private infant care centres and visited three other centres in his search.

In September 2023, he received an offer from one of the six pre-schools. His son started attending the centre in November 2023 and is now eight months old.

“As my wife and I are new and working parents caring for the child on our own, the uncertainty of whether we were able to secure a spot in an infant care centre weighed quite heavily on our minds,” Mr Fadhli said.

“Honestly, it’s a relief, since the pre-school we got is one on our list, and at least we managed to secure a spot.”