Archives of Parliamentary Excerpts, Press Releases, and Speeches
4 October 2008
JBJ in Memorial
21 January 2008
Speech in Parliament by Chiam See Tong on HDB upgrading
22 October 2007
Amendment of the Panel Code
5 October 2007
Press release on Myanmar's Military Junta
22 May 2007
Parliamentary Debates
9 April 2007
Speech in Parliament by Chiam See Tong on Ministers' salary hikes
4 February 2007
Speech during MP's dialogue session by Lim Bak Chuan on GST increase
15 February 08-Pre-School Education
Question To ask the Minister for Education (a) what is the importance of early childhood education; (b) whether his Ministry can pour in the equivalent effort to build a stronger infrastructure system for early childhood education that is comparable to other educational levels; and (c) in light of many different private schools offering diploma and degree courses in pre-school education, who is responsible to ensure quality control over their curricula.
Response
1. Understanding about the importance of early childhood education is still evolving. Some recent international research suggests that the early childhood years are a sensitive period in which a child’s future development can be influenced. MOE’s own data indicates that pre-school education is particularly helpful in allowing children from low-income and non-English speaking families to be more school-ready.
2. MOE has done much to help children from diverse pre-school experiences to transit to formal education in Primary One. In this way, all children will have the opportunity to benefit from the quality education in our schools, regardless of starting points. Some examples include the reduction in Primary One and Two class sizes from 40 to 30 for smoother transition from kindergarten, enhancement to the Learning Support Programme to build literacy skills, and the introduction of a similar programme in Mathematics.
3. MOE’s support for early childhood education has been targeted at areas which would have the greatest leverage. These areas include: 1. Delineating the Desired Outcomes for Pre-School Education which are aligned to the desired outcomes of primary education; 2. Developing a curriculum framework; 3. Raising the minimum professional qualifications of teachers; 4. Developing a professional development framework to encourage continuous professional development of pre-school practitioners; 5. Organising workshops, courses, seminars and sharing sessions for kindergarten leaders and teachers; 6. Promoting kindergarten self-appraisal to encourage a culture of continual improvement among pre-schools
4. MOE is currently looking at whether there is a need to further enhance measures in some of these areas, to help our pre-school operators level up.
5. The Pre-school Qualification Accreditation Committee (PQAC) was set up jointly by MOE and MCYS in 2001to ascertain that the courses conducted by teacher training agencies meet the prescribed standards. Its role is to assess and accredit the pre-school teacher training courses in Singapore up to Diploma level.
6. The course content is regularly reviewed with input obtained from the stakeholders such as the practitioners and trainers to ensure that it is in line with recent developments in the ECE field. The latest review of the pre-school teacher training courses is underway and is expected to be completed some time in 2008.