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IN SCHOOL NOW: Candy Kwang could hardly hold a pencil when grassroots leaders found her at home with her out-of-work parents. -- ST PHOTO: LAU FOOK KONG
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WHEN other children were learning the alphabet in the first year of kindergarten, five-year-old Candy Kwang could hardly hold a pencil, nor understand any English.
Grassroots leaders found her in May, at home with her out-of-work parents and two younger siblings.
With their help, she was enrolled in a kindergarten in Tampines North in July.
The first week, she cried constantly, thinking that classmates who spoke to her in English were scolding her.
'Now, even when she's sick, she keeps saying that she wants to go to school,' said her father, Mr Kwang Meng Soon, 40, who has since found work as an estate cleaner.
She has also learnt to write her own name and get along with others, he added.
Candy's classes cost him a subsidised $9 monthly instead of the usual $90 a month.
Candy is one of 56 five-year-olds who have been identified by grassroots preschool outreach efforts launched this year.
These children have since been placed in kindergartens or will be put in one next year.
There are about 1,200 children, or an estimated 3 per cent of the cohort of five-year-olds, not enrolled in preschool.
This is lower than the Ministry of Education's earlier 5 per cent estimate, as 2 per cent of the children were found to be overseas, already in preschools or in special-needs schools.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Masagos Zulkifli said yesterday that families must realise the importance of giving children a head start and enrolling them in preschool.
'For preschool must not only prepare the child for school, but also prepare the child for life,' he said, on the sidelines of an event for about 550 preschool teachers yesterday.
Mr Masagos said families do not send their children to preschool for a variety of reasons, including ignorance and financial or caregiver problems - for example, when there is no one free to take the child to preschool.
Asked if the problem was especially serious among Malays, he said: 'When you are talking about 3 per cent, it's no more an ethnic issue, largely also management.'
These families may have complicated issues with the parents separated or incarcerated.
'It's the tail end of the problem,' he said.
The outreach effort covered 44 out of 84 wards this year.
Mr Masagos said half of the grassroots volunteers have been trained, and the other half will also be trained to ramp up the outreach effort next year.
hoaili@sph.com.sg
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