Voices of Youth: Make it easier to retain teachers in early childhood education

To meet the demand for early childhood education, the Government is opening new Ministry of Education kindergartens in 2026 and 2027 (3 MOE kindergartens to open in 2026, 2027 in Tengah, Sengkang and AMK, June 28).

In October last year, Social and Family Development Minister Masagos Zulkifli said there would be improvements to training and career progression opportunities for early childhood educators (Better training, career progression for early childhood educators among new initiatives to boost pre-school quality, Oct 16, 2021).

It is clear that the Government has placed great emphasis on improving the early childhood sector in recent years.

However, there is still one major issue - it is difficult to retain educators.

There is no point in building more kindergartens when there is a lack of human resources to cope with the demand; after all, the centres cannot be automated.

The turnover rate in the early childhood education industry is high for various reasons - low starting pay, long working hours and having to deal with multiple stakeholders such as parents, supervisors and other childcare professionals.

Unless something decisive is done, this industry will have trouble meeting the growing demand for quality early childhood education.

Rowan Lee, 18

Polytechnic Year 1 student

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