Three new pre-school anchor operators selected: MSF

The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) appointed three new pre-school anchor operators on Monday.
 
They are Metropolitan YMCA’s MY World Preschool, Kinderland Consortiums – Skool4Kidz and EtonHouse International’s E-Bridge Pre-school, according to the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) in a media release.
 
All three of them will join PAP Community Foundation and NTUC First Campus’ My First Skool in receiving funding support under the anchor operator scheme.
 
The scheme helps operators “to increase access to good quality and affordable early childhood care and education, especially for children from lower income or disadvantaged backgrounds”, said MSF.
 
The three new operators were selected out of the 16 that submitted proposals during an open call in June 2013.
 
They were chosen because they had “demonstrated commitment and ability to meet the demand for early childhood services, offer good quality and affordable programmes, expand outreach to low income families, and provide sector leadership in manpower development”, the ministry said.
 
All the five operators are appointed a tenure of five years, and they are expected to provide around 16,000 additional preschool places in Singapore by 2017, it said.
 
Social and Family Development Minister Chan Chun Sing said, “With more Anchor Operators on board, we can better serve the needs of our children and families. The fees will be affordable to parents as the anchor operators must keep to the programme fee caps. The operators have also committed to help children from lower income or disadvantaged backgrounds through corporate social responsibility programmes.”