Increasing Offering of Non-Chinese Official Languages at Preschools in Sengkang

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim asked the Minister for Social and Family Development whether there are plans to increase the offering of non-Chinese official languages as a mother tongue language at the preschool and kindergarten levels for MOE-registered institutions located within Sengkang Town.

The Government has been working to increase the offering of Mother Tongue Language (MTL) at preschools. All Ministry of Education (MOE) Kindergartens offer all three MTLs. The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has also been working closely with the Anchor Operators (AOPs) to expand the offering of MTL in preschools, especially in Malay and Tamil language. There are plans to double AOPs' provision of Malay and/or Tamil language education to about 350 centres by 2022. This was announced by ECDA in 2018.

However, the increase in provision of MTL requires time as the number of MTL teachers is limited. Nationally, about 1,800 or over 90% of preschools offer at least one MTL. Of these, about 160 preschools offer all three MTLs and another 270 preschools offer two MTLs.

We have at least one preschool centre offering Malay or Tamil language in almost all heartland planning areas. Within the Sengkang planning area, about 30 preschools offer Malay language and about 10 preschools offer Tamil language. ECDA will continue to work with the AOPs to ensure a good geographical spread of centres offering MTL.

To expand MTL teaching resources, ECDA has been working closely with training providers and operators to expand training capacity. For example, we introduced the Certificate in Preschool MTL Teaching (CPMTL) for Malay and Tamil Language in 2019 and have progressively increased the number of training places since then. As of June 2021, more than 300 in-service educators have completed the CPMTL for Malay and Tamil Language and have been deployed as MTL teachers in the preschools.

While ECDA continues to ramp up the supply of MTL teachers, preschools may determine their provision of MTL according to the needs and preferences of children and parents in each locality. ECDA's continued efforts to expand the provision of MTL, together with MOE's planned increase in the number of MOE Kindergartens, will offer parents a wider range of preschools that offer MTL learning.

I thank the Minister of State for her response. I noted as well that she shared that there were quite a large number of these MTL facilities located within the Sengkang planning area, I believe, were her words. Based on my background research online at the MOE portal, I was actually able to establish that within Sengkang Town, meaning Sengkang GRC, it currently only has nine institutions offering Chinese MTL, versus 12 in nearby Punggol. One offering Tamil versus two in Punggol. And four offering Malay, versus seven, in Punggol. This is despite the slightly larger population within Sengkang GRC.

So, I am wondering if this is a function of the planning radius, like what the Minister of State described, or is it a difference in demographics that accounts for these differences?

I thank the Member for his question. I am not sure what specific website or source the Member is referring to. But based on the information that I have, there are a total of 97 licensed preschool centres within the Sengkang planning area, of which 95 offer Chinese language, 28 offer Malay language and 10 offer Tamil language. If there is a need for a further clarification of these numbers, I would be happy to take this up with the Member offline.

I just have one clarification. I did ask a question about Mother Tongue Language education teachers in the Early Childhood level and the question was "what was the breakdown in the number of MTL preschool educators". The answer was that there was 10,500 for Chinese Language, 2,800 for Malay Language and 700 for Tamil Language.

I was just wondering what MOE will be doing to improve our capacities in offering Mother Tongue Languages in schools and increasing the number of teachers available.

I thank the Member for her question. I think I have answered the question in my main reply, which is there are plans to double the AOPs' provision of Malay and Tamil Language education to about 350 centres by 2022. And this was already announced by the Ministry of Social and Family Development and ECDA in 2018.

I would also like to clarify that the Member had referred to MOE. I think there is a need for us to distinguish between MOE Kindergartens and childcare centres. So, as I mentioned in my main reply, all MOE Kindergartens offer all three Mother Tongue Languages.