More field trips in store for PAP Community Foundation kids
Learning about honey bees, financial literacy, and the marine eco-system – more of such field trips will be organised for children from PAP Community Foundation (PCF) Sparkletots centres during the school holidays.
This is part of the operator’s efforts to make out-of-classroom learning a key focus of its curriculum.
For a start, 26 sessions will be organised throughout late-October to end-December for some 6,000 children across 73 PCF Sparkletots centres.
During trips that typically last for half the day, these children will get to visit one of three places: honey bee garden Bee Amazed, indoor theme park KidZania Singapore and SEA Aquarium, both of which are located on Sentosa Island.
“The world is a big place. I think (we should), as early as we can, to expose our children to the wider world, develop their sense of curiosity and encourage them to ask questions, read and have diverse interests,” said Manpower Minister Josephine Teo on Monday (5 November).
Teo, who is also the executive committee chairperson of PCF, was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a field trip for 60 children from a PCF pre-school centre in Sengkang to Bee Amazed in Yishun.
The childcare operator, which has about 43,000 children enrolled across more than 360 centres, is planning for other partners to come aboard next year. It will also extend the programme to include children from other centres.
PCF CEO Victor Bay said that parents pay about $3 to $6 per activity to defray costs like transport.
Bay declined to disclose the sum set aside for the outdoor programmes but said that it was separate from the $20 million that PCF has reserved over the next three years for the development of its teachers.
He described the sum as “sufficient” to enable as many as PCF pre-school children who do “not have many opportunities compared to others to come for this programme”.
“The resources are sufficient for the immediate five years, but we will review and see how best we can organise next year to the maximum benefit,” he added.
From next year, the preschool operator will also offer more structured learning programmes in areas such as speech, drama, sports, IT literacy and social etiquette at heavily subsidised prices.
When asked whether the introduction of such initiatives are part of the government’s move to level the playing field for preschoolers, Teo said, “Broadening the availability of affordable and quality childcare is one part of it, but it is not the only thing that is happening. You need interventions on all fronts.”
The announcement of these initiatives comes less than two weeks after the setting up of an inter-agency task force, headed by Second Minister for Education Indranee Rajah, to strengthen support for students from disadvantaged families.
Sales supervisor Janelle Kok, 31, who accompanied her five-year-old daughter to Bee Amazed on Monday, called the experience both eye-opening for her and her child.
“It is more helpful than learning indoors in a classroom. Compared to theoretical learning, the experience leaves a deeper impression and allows her to retain the knowledge longer…she also gets to learn about teamwork and interacting with her sibling,” said Kok, who is also a mother to a six-month-old baby.
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