Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): There is a vast literature on the importance of early childhood education.
The economic case for doing so is compelling. The reason is straightforward, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Jim Heckman explained. Early childhood development entails building the necessary foundation for all subsequent human capital development. Without solid roots deeply planted, one’s ability to absorb anything else that follows becomes compromised.
Hence, the returns to human capital investment tend to be highest during early childhood. These investments include engaged, supporting parents and teachers, learning cognitive and language skills, promoting social engagements and interactions, as well as improved health and nutrition.
The need to promote such investments almost certainly informed the decision to create the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) in 2013.
But despite its clear importance and the fact that returns are the highest in these early stages, the costs of sending a child for early childhood education are still higher on average than sending them to higher levels, like primary and secondary school. This is well known to Singaporeans. Many parents look forward to the day when they can finally send their kids to primary school, where fees drop to just $13 a month, compared to hundreds of dollars, especially in the earliest years.
But to be clear, there are a slate of subsidies available which alter this calculus. If you are a working mother, and if you earn a lower income, the total amount of subsidies available may be sufficient to fully offset fees. If your child were to attend a typical childcare or kindergarten, there are also special dispensations for higher subsidy support, such as those under ComCare assistance, or if they are non-parent caregivers supporting the child, or if a parent becomes incarcerated.
But there are still families who fall through the cracks. If a couple decides that the mother would not work, perhaps because they wish to spend more time on homemaking, or because the economics no longer works out when they have a sufficiently large number of children, then fees can quickly become burdensome.
The statistics bear this out. In 2021, 88% of children aged three to four were not enrolled in preschool. And perhaps more worryingly, this drops to 78% among lower-income families. The gap persists for those aged five to six, where enrolment rates are 95 to 93%, respectively. Yet, it is this specific group, children from low-income households, that will benefit the most from early childhood interventions.
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That is why I believe that support for early childhood education should be made much more universal. One strategy is to simply eliminate the distinction between subsidies made available to families with a working mother versus those without, for lower-income households. This distinction, which may be motivated by a desire to ensure that mothers who are able to return to work do so, ends up inadvertently disadvantaging the child which, in turn, diminishes their future prospects for breaking out of poverty.
Another approach is to provide lower-income households with vouchers that can be applied to preschools. This is not dissimilar to subsidies in practice but has one added advantage. It also sends a clear signal to underperforming preschools that they need to buck up or they will be relieved of Government financial support.
The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Ms Sun Xueling): 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.
Ministry of Social and Family Development
6 March 2024
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=budget-2390
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 