SINGAPORE – Registration for Kindergarten 1 (K1) admission in 2025 to Ministry of Education (MOE) pre-schools will begin on Feb 16 and go on till Feb 20, said the ministry on Jan 18.

Some 55 MOE kindergartens, including two new ones, will be taking part in the upcoming MOE Kindergarten Registration Exercise.

The two new MOE pre-schools – MOE Kindergarten @ Elias Park and MOE Kindergarten @ Hougang – will be opening in 2025.

The MOE kindergartens at Blangah Rise and Kranji will continue to operate in 2024, but will not be accepting new K1 cohorts in 2025 as they will be closed or relocated.

Registration is open to children of Singapore citizens and permanent residents born between Jan 2, 2020, and Jan 1, 2021, both dates inclusive.

MOE will also be introducing expanded partnership clusters between its kindergartens and Early Year Centres from 2024’s exercise. These partnerships are with PCF Sparkletots Preschool and My First Skool, which currently operate 61 Early Year Centres for children aged two months to four years.

Three more expanded partnership clusters in Ang Mo Kio, Sembawang and Jurong West will join the current two in Punggol.

Partnership clusters allow one or more centres to be partnered with multiple MOE kindergartens concurrently.

All Singapore citizen and permanent resident children enrolled in these centres by Jan 31 of their Nursery 2 year will be offered a K1 place in a partner MOE kindergarten, if they register via the Early Year Centre registration form during the registration exercise.

The MOE kindergarten-Early Year Centre model “provides a continuum of pre-school education for children aged two months to six years”, said the ministry.

It added that its kindergartens will continue to accept children who are not enrolled in Early Year Centres through open admissions to ensure that these pre-schools remain accessible to non-Centre children.

An additional expanded partnership cluster in Tampines will be implemented from the 2025 registration exercise.

MOE kindergartens to hold open houses on Feb 3 and 17

All MOE kindergartens offer the three mother tongue languages – Chinese, Malay and Tamil – to encourage bilingualism in the early years and help lay a strong foundation for language learning.

The ministry said that its kindergartens’ curriculum is “designed by curriculum specialists to nurture children holistically in an enriching learning environment, so that they are confident, possess strong social skills, have a good foundation in literacy and numeracy, and are well-prepared for Primary 1”.

Before the registration exercise, parents are invited to attend the open houses of the 55 kindergartens on Feb 3 or 17 to learn more about their programmes and facilities. There, they can learn more about each kindergarten’s curriculum, programmes, interactive learning environment and facilities, as well as speak to the educators.

The open houses will allow parents to better understand the pre-schools before registering their child in their preferred kindergarten, said MOE.

Parents can register their child for admission to an MOE kindergarten via its website (www.moe.gov.sg/mk) from Feb 16, 9am, to Feb 20, 4pm, and can also contact their preferred pre-school directly should they require assistance during the registration period.

Parents will be informed of the registration outcome by April 15.

More information on the registration exercise can be found on the MOE website.

Outside this registration period, parents can seek admission to K1 or K2 for their child by contacting their preferred kindergarten directly to check if there are vacancies.

For parents who require full-day care service for their child, Kindergarten Care services are available in all MOE kindergartens.

Children enrolled in an MOE kindergarten will enjoy priority admission to the primary school that it is located in, with MOE kindergartens working closely with their primary schools to smoothen and ease their children’s transition from kindergarten to Primary 1.

The ministry reiterated that “like all children who may be eligible for priority admissions, placement into that primary school is not guaranteed and depends on the number of applicants and vacancies in the school during the Primary 1 Registration Exercise”.