Support for Preschools Grappling with COVID-19 Rules and Manpower Shortage Given Rise in Cases

Ms Hany Soh asked the Minister for Social and Family Development what support is available to assist preschools that are grappling with COVID-19 rules and manpower shortage issues as COVID-19 cases rise.

Mr Speaker, since the start of the pandemic, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has been regularly reviewing the COVID-19 measures for preschools, in line with changes to our national posture and in consultation with MOH. These regular reviews aim to safeguard the health and safety of preschool children and staff, while enabling preschools to manage their operations. The measures also consider the fact that the majority of preschool children are unvaccinated.

To keep our children and staff safe, and to enable preschools to keep up with changes to the health protocols, ECDA regularly updates the sector via email circulars and infographics. Preschools can also reach out directly to their ECDA licensing officer if they need help or guidance. ECDA also provided preschools with funding support in 2020 and 2021 to hire Safe Management Assistants to help implement safe management measures (SMMs). In turn, this gave operators time to review their operational processes and manpower planning to sustain evolving SMMs.

To help preschools manage COVID-19 cases ahead of the Omicron wave, ECDA and MOH have streamlined the contact tracing processes and empowered preschools with greater autonomy to manage their COVID-19 cases. For example, we have streamlined the process to allow preschools to submit details of close contacts directly to MOH so that Health Risk Notices can be issued faster, thereby reducing the period of uncertainty for parents and staff.

The surge in cases due to Omicron has affected many segments of society, and the preschool sector is no exception. We recognise that a high number of COVID-19 cases amongst staff can disrupt preschools’ operations. In earlier phases of the pandemic, cross-deployment of staff across preschools and across classes within the same preschool was restricted to minimise the risk of transmission.

As all preschool staff are now fully vaccinated and are placed on weekly Rostered Routine Testing (RRT), ECDA has provided operators with more flexibility in manpower deployment within each preschool. Where necessary, each preschool may deploy staff across classes or tap on relief staff. In areas where manpower is very tight, such as Mother Tongue Language (MTL) teachers, such staff may be deployed across preschools, subject to prevailing SMMs.

In situations where preschools are impacted by substantial staff absenteeism, ECDA works closely with the operators to initiate their business continuity plan, such as adjusting programme plans and allowing flexibility in staffing ratios.

Keeping our preschools safe and healthy is a collective effort. We advise parents to monitor their children’s health and consult a primary care doctor if their child is unwell. Children who are unwell should stay at home to rest and return to preschool only when they have fully recovered.

We also encourage parents, whose children are five years old and older and medically eligible, to register them for COVID-19 vaccination to give them better protection.

I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the reply. I have two supplementary questions. One is on whether ECDA will provide more support in relations to provision of more ART kits to all the preschools to ease the operating expenses and encourage more people to get tested on a regular basis. The other question is my concern in relations to a disruption of manpower and whether that will compromise the preschools' adherence to the environmental sanitation regime, exposing the children to the possibility of gastroenteritis cases.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Member Ms Hany Soh for her additional questions. On the first question on additional support in terms of ART kits, I think that is something we can take back and explore. Last year, sometime around September, we had done the same. We issued some kits to the preschools, children, to alleviate the stress on the families of having to test regularly for the children.

On the second question on disruption of manpower, as I had mentioned in my main reply, it is a balance we want to strike between maintaining the preschools' operations viz a viz getting the children tested. We understand that manpower can be a stretch, especially at this time when we have quite a number of preschool staff and teachers who might be down with COVID-19, who might be on medical leave. We want to be able to empower the preschools, give them some flexibility. So, as I had mentioned in my reply earlier, we do allow them some degree of flexibility as compared to before. In the earlier phases of fighting the pandemic, our SMMs and restrictions had been quite tight. Now, we have allowed for deployment across classes. We have also allowed for, in some cases, for example, where manpower is very scarce – as I mentioned, mother tongue language teachers – for them to be deployed across preschools, subject to SMMs.

So, we are striking a right balance and we are mindful of the constraints that preschools face, we are mindful of the stress that preschools have to handle and deal with as well. But as much as possible, at this phase of the pandemic, we want our preschools to remain open as much as possible so that social impact arising from preschool closures are kept to the minimum. At the same time, as we move to the endemic phase, we hope that we can also try to alleviate some of the stress that both the preschools as well as families are facing, and that is why we will take Member's first suggestion on board as well.