Inflow of Foreign Manpower to Address Shortage of Infant Care Teachers

Ms Mariam Jaafar asked the Minister for Social and Family Development whether the Ministry is looking into allowing more foreign manpower to address the shortage of infant care teachers.

Childcare operators have been ramping up manpower over the years to support the expansion of preschool places, including infant care. As of end-2021, there are about 5,600 early childhood educators qualified in infant care in preschools. This is more than two times the corresponding number in 2017.

More infant care staff will be needed to meet the rising demand for infant care places and support sector expansion in the coming years. The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has been working with preschool operators and training providers to attract more locals, especially mid-careerists, to be trained as Infant Educators through career fairs and initiatives, such as the Career Conversion Programmes.

Foreign manpower is already one source of infant care staff. Preschool operators can hire foreign manpower for infant care within their foreign worker quotas to address their manpower needs. Today, less than a quarter of our certified early childhood workforce are foreigners, of which a small proportion work in infant care.

Besides tapping on foreign manpower, ECDA also allows up to 50% of the staff in infant care to be allied infant educators or programme helpers. This gives preschools the flexibility to tap on a wider pool of manpower to deliver infant care services.

To help improve retention of the infant care workforce, ECDA is working with preschool operators to put in place enhanced career pathways and professional development opportunities for Infant Educators, as part of the Skills Framework for Early Childhood and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) roadmap. This will enable Infant Educators' salaries to grow in tandem with higher skills and job responsibilities over time. ECDA also encourages preschool operators to adopt the recommendations from the Early Childhood Occupational Health and Safety Assessment (OHSA) study to improve working conditions within the infant care bays, such as providing ergonomic equipment to infant educators.

ECDA will continue to monitor the manpower situation and trends and support the sector's manpower needs.