New relief staff pool for pre-schools by end-2024 to improve work-life balance for educators

SINGAPORE - Early childhood educators will get more help to balance their work and personal lives by end-2024, as the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) begins growing a relief staff pool.

The move also aims to help all pre-schools meet their manpower needs at reasonable hiring costs, while being assured of reliable service standards, ECDA said on Aug 29.

Selected service providers will be appointed and the decision communicated to the early childhood sector by the end of 2024.

Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli first announced this initiative in October 2022, as part of ongoing efforts to improve the working conditions of educators. Other such initiatives implemented over the years include making Teachers’ Day and Children’s Day pre-school holidays from 2024, and removing Saturday childcare services from 2025.

All 1,900 licensed pre-schools will be able to tap this pool of relief staff, ECDA announced during a Teachers’ Day celebration at M.Y World @ Dawson.

The event was attended by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Eric Chua, who were joined by pre-schoolers and their parents, as well as 32 early childhood educators.

Mr Tharman and Mr Chua watched a performance by children who were dressed in costumes made from upcycled materials, toured the centre and presented gifts to the teachers.

Mr Tharman said early childhood educators and parents play a central role at this key stage of the child’s growth. “They will help ensure that our kids grow up as rounded individuals, confident of themselves and, above all, appreciating the contributions that we make to each other,” he said.

M.Y World @ Dawson principal Audri Chiang said the new relief staff pool will help greatly with the manpower crunch faced when teachers go for training or take emergency or maternity leave. 

“If we can tap the staff pool, it will really be helpful for the existing teams in terms of operations, and the teachers can continue to give quality care to the children,” she said.

Currently, in the event of a teacher needing to be replaced, teachers will be redeployed from other classes or levels in the centre to ensure that the teacher-children ratio remains in line with ECDA guidelines, Ms Chiang said. 

According to ECDA guidelines, the minimum qualified staff-child ratio for children aged 18 months and below is one to five. The corresponding requirement for those of playgroup age – 18 months to three years – is one to eight, while that for children aged three to six goes up to one to 25. 

However, these requirements often stretch out the existing educators, she added.

“Educators will have to take on dual roles, like switching from class to class, which adds to the load,” Ms Chiang said.

The school currently has 20 teachers and six non-teaching staff looking after 74 children – 12 aged two to 17 months, and 62 from playgroup to Kindergarten 1 level.

Ms Santhi Balakrishnan, an infant educator at M.Y World @ Dawson with more than 34 years of pre-school experience, said she always worries about her co-workers who have to take over her duties when she is on leave. 

“If one teacher is down, it’s hard for the rest of the educators to handle,” she said. “With this initiative, when we step out for any reason, we are at ease because we know all the children are taken care of and the teachers are stress-free.” 

ECDA launched an open call from March to May to invite eligible service providers to apply to provide relief staff services. They had to meet three prerequisites before submitting a proposal.

They must have at least two years of experience providing manpower or staffing services, or at least the same amount of experience providing and managing products or other services for the early childhood sector. 

They also have to be a business, society or association registered in Singapore, and must declare any insolvency or bankruptcy episodes over the past five years.

ECDA said it will collaborate with the appointed service providers to expand the relief staff pool by sharing contacts of former educators and programme staff interested in relief roles.

Madam Low Ling Ling, 42, who has a four-year-old son in M.Y World @ Dawson, said she believes taking care of teachers will lead to more quality care for children. 

“The whole day, teachers take care of not just one but over 12 pupils. We must consider, are we also taking care of the teachers?” the sustainability consultant added.

“The teacher’s role is very demanding, so having relief teachers will be helpful,” said Madam Low, adding that teachers may feel guilty for going on leave or falling ill.

When asked if she has safety concerns about having teachers from external providers in the pre-school, she said she believes ECDA will have measures and training in place before relief teachers are hired.

“I think (this initiative) is really helpful for teachers,” said Madam Low. “Teachers are free to take leave, and then you have happy teachers and happy kids.”