By Non-Constituency MP, Yee Jenn Jong
[Delivered in Committee of Supply on 12 March 2015]
Sir, I had previously called for the government to go beyond anchor operators and bring more operators into schemes that provide better grants and access to new facilities, but in exchange for strict controls on fees charged.
I am glad to see that AOP participation has since been widened and we will now have POP, which I understand will provide more government support for operators that commit to keep fees affordable.
I had also previously suggested economic grouping and clustering of resources. I will list some ideas again:
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Where feasible, old government buildings or purpose-built facilities can be made available to be mega preschool centres, housing different operators under one roof. There can be shared facilities such as a large hall, common kitchen, and outdoor play and game areas.
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Promote the use of external central kitchens so centres do not need their own kitchen and cooks, and can buy cooked food from such suppliers.
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Encourage centres to form economic grouping with common resources such as curriculum, enrichment programmes and back office support. The degree of such sharing can be up to different operators, as some will want partial differentiation in curriculum for branding. We can devise schemes to encourage economic grouping to have better sectoral productivity and higher quality curriculum.
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Have common resources purchased by the ministry for loan, such as costlier but useful learning resources, puppets and props for annual plays which preschools will usually need. When visiting Australia many years ago, I noted that the state provides such shared resources for loan. These resources can be kept with a lead preschool centre within a geographical area to manage on behalf of the cluster.
We can constantly be creative and flexible to look for ways to raise productivity and quality through sharing of resources while keep fees affordable. Thank you.