Qualifying Criteria for Non-profit Anchor Pre-school Operators

Mr Png Eng Huat asked the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (a) what criteria are used to determine that the PAP Community Foundation and NTUC First Campus are non-profit bodies to qualify for recurrent grants as non-profit anchor preschool operators; (b) what lessons have been learnt from working with these two non-profit Anchor Operators (AOPs) including the impact of the support given to these AOPs on other industry players; and (c) how many voluntary welfare organisations and private operators applied to be AOPs but were not selected.

To be eligible for the Recurrent Grant scheme, childcare operators should be not-for-profit bodies, have no religious affiliation and must have a minimum paid up capital of $5 million.

When the scheme was introduced in 2009, five operators applied3. Only PCF and NTUC were able to meet the full set of eligibility criteria. Being one of the largest childcare operators in the industry, they had the potential to meet the objectives of the scheme which was to significantly ramp up capacity of quality and affordable childcare programmes.

Since the scheme was introduced, there are now 196 PCF Sparkletots and NTUC My First Skool childcare centres across the island. This is a three-fold increase in the number of centres and has gone some way to meet the childcare needs of young parents. All PCF Sparkletots and NTUC My First Skool centres charge below the market median for childcare fees.

In addition to keeping fees affordable, anchor operators are required to meet quality targets that are set above the requirements for the rest of the sector. 85% of teachers in PCF and NTUC centres are diploma trained, compared to 76% in the general industry.

Our anchor operators have also been useful partners in our efforts to uplift quality standards across the wider sector, for example, by participating in the Ministry of Education's recently introduced Singapore Pre-school Accreditation Framework (SPARK). Of the 75 childcare centres that have achieved SPARK certification today, 27 (36%) are PCF and NTUC centres. More will be coming on board over the next few years.

Moving forward, the Implementation Committee for Enhancing Pre-school Education is reviewing the design of the existing scheme. We will work towards making enhancements to further improve the quality of programmes at existing anchor operator centres while expanding the scheme beyond PCF and NTUC to extend Government support to a larger segment of the market.