MOE had received feedback about Little Professors in 2025 but found ‘nothing untoward’: Janil

SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Education had received feedback about student care operator Little Professors Learning Centre in 2025, but found there was “nothing untoward” about the concerns, said Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Education on March 2.

After terminating Little Professors’ services in February 2026

amid investigations into unpaid

staff

salaries and double-charging of parents,

MOE reviewed the complaints and feedback it received about the operator over the last year.

It was “nothing different from what we had seen across other operators”, Dr Janil said in Parliament.

“There were a variety of things, indeed, some of the feedback was about, for example, the quality of food, another child’s behaviour to a parent’s child, reports on services or the teachers, and we also had a couple of reports from the teachers as employees,” he said.

Action was taken against Little Professors, which had operated student care centres in at least eight primary schools, when MOE was aware of a serious incident in February, he added.

Dr Janil was responding to Mr Shawn Loh (Jalan Besar GRC) who asked about MOE’s whistleblowing policies, in the light of earlier feedback given.

“Parents in Whampoa and Boon Keng estates told me that they had given feedback about the deteriorating quality of the student care centre last year,” said Mr Loh, who is the adviser to both the Education Services Union and Singapore Teachers’ Union.

“So when MOE said that they only found out about it in February this year, the parents told me that this did not gel with the feedback they had given,” he said.

The incident, according to the parents, was “regrettable but possibly preventable”, said Mr Loh. Hong Wen School in Towner Road, in his constituency, is one of the eight affected schools with after-school care formerly under Little Professors.

In response, Dr Janil said that MOE’s first priority was to provide care for the children. “Subsequently, when there were some issues to do with the finances highlighted, we made a police report and that matter is under investigation,” he added.

Before the termination of Little Professors’ services, MOE had not had cause to terminate the services of any student care operator, he added.

In 2025, it received a total of 212 e-mails and phone calls giving feedback on student care centres and KCare centres, which provide after-school care for children at MOE kindergartens, Dr Janil noted.

The ministry had reviewed all of the feedback given and followed up with schools and operators when necessary.

Said Dr Janil: “We recognise that there is room for improvement within the sector to provide better services, to strengthen the resilience of operators and to better monitor the service provision. We are further reviewing our processes for selecting and monitoring student care centre and KCare operators.”

Several MPs including Mr Loh and Dr Hamid Razak (West Coast-Jurong West GRC) had asked about governance of student care centres and the recourse available for affected employees and parents.

A total of eight MPs filed questions about MOE’s follow-up plans after the Little Professors incident, some of whom asked for better oversight of student care operators’ financial standing.

Dr Janil said some former Little Professors’ staff members have been employed in their original centres in schools, and are being paid by MOE until a permanent operator is appointed.

In the interim, school staff from the eight affected primary schools have been deployed to oversee after-school care of the 1,800 children formerly under Little Professors.

Mr Loh asked what safeguards are in place to ensure that student care operators are in good financial standing before and after they are appointed, to prevent such incidents from happening again.

Dr Janil said the financial standing of operators is assessed by MOE at the point of application, and since January 2025 through yearly submission of audited financial statements.

He added: “We’ll see whether there are lessons learnt that will inform us about whether we need to put in further mechanisms going forward, on whistleblowing.”

To avoid having to rely on teachers to cover after-school care duties, Dr Hamid suggested a review of current operators and having a whitelist of those to partner with, that could step in when necessary.

He also proposed having a broader view of operational and financial triggers to monitor operators.

In response, Dr Janil acknowledged the need for better monitoring mechanisms.

“Perhaps we need a mechanism to give us systemic confidence... such that we would have an early warning if there was a resilience issue of a given operator,” he said.

Some MPs asked about recourse for parents who had double GIRO deductions in February 2026 and deposits which have yet to be reimbursed.

Dr Hamid asked if fees paid by parents could be safeguarded, through measures like ring-fencing or insurance.

WP MP Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) asked if the Government would help coordinate the process of claims for affected families, instead of having them individually file claims with the Small Claims Tribunal.

Acknowledging parents’ anxieties, Dr Janil said the matter is still under investigation and that MOE is looking at ways to restore parents’ confidence in student care operators.

“We are reviewing the sector, and we will look to see whether we have mechanisms that we can detect earlier, respond faster, and perhaps have better resilience across the system.”