Singapore looks at Finland, Sweden and Norway for deciding how to enhance Preschool Education.
“If you look at the Nordic countries, because of the quality of their preschool education, it is also something that encourages the women to go to work,” said Madam Halimah, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports.
She and the Implementation Committee for enhancing Pre-School Education in Singapore plans to visit the three Nordic countries at the end of the year to examine the pre-school centre models there.
“Parents feel, ‘I feel comfortable putting my child in a pre-school centre and then I can go to work’,” said Madam Halimah. “We need not copy wholesale, what is workable in their countries may not be workable for us. What we need to do is to extract useful, relevant principles and apply (them) to our system.”
Madam Halimah added that affordability is another important area for the committee.
The Committee is jointly helmed by Education Minister Heng Swee Keat and Acting Minister for Community Development Youth and Sports, Chan Chun Sing.
Also in the committee are Madam Halimah Yacob and Senior Minister of State-Designate for Education and Law, Ms Indranee Rajah.
