SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday (Aug 20) laid out plans to deal with the issues that would affect the prosperity and well-being of Singapore in the longer term. Making the case for every child in Singapore…
SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday (Aug 20) laid out plans to deal with the issues that would affect the prosperity and well-being of Singapore in the longer term.
Making the case for every child in Singapore, regardless of family background, to have a good start in life, Mr Lee said the Government would double its annual spending on pre-school education within the next five years.
Annual spending has doubled in the last five years, from S$360 million in 2012 to S$840 million in 2017. It will double spending again in the next five years, to S$1.7 billion in 2022, Mr Lee said.
He made the case for a child’s education to begin “much earlier” than Primary 1, saying a child has specific developmental windows at an early age – for instance, children pick up language skills most easily and rapidly in the first three years.
“Miss that window, and it becomes much harder later on, ” he said.
50,000 more pre-school places have already been created in the last five years, Mr Lee said – but the younger towns are still short of places.
An additional 40,000 new places will be created in the next five years, bringing the total number of pre-school places to about 200,000.
Early Years Centres will also be built for children up to the age of four. The Ministry of Education (MOE) will also scale up the number of its kindergartens – from 15 at present, to 50 kindergartens in the next five years.
There will also be a new centralised institute to train pre-school teachers and carers, much like the National Institute of Education (NIE) for primary, secondary and junior college teachers.
The new institute, the National Institute of Early Childhood and Development (NIEC) , will provide the full range of diploma and certificate programmes for pre-school professionals.
Mr Lee also stated that the salaries of pre-school professionals need to improve further, as their profession is upgraded.
The Government will work with employers to ensure good career prospects and competitive pay for pre-school professionals, he said.
KidSTART, a programme that helps support children from low-income and vulnerable families, could be scaled up, if the promising early results are confirmed, Mr Lee said.
FIGHTING DIABETES: “IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT WORRIED, THAT I AM WORRIED”
Explaining why he had chosen to devote a substantial part of the Rally to fighting diabetes, Mr Lee noted in his Mandarin speech that it was because many people did not take diabetes seriously, that it has become a serious problem .
