Being overwhelmed with other priorities like work, dealing with children’s poor behaviour and logistical challenges are hurdles that lower-income families face when trying to maintain their children’s attendance rates in pre-school.
The extra resources received by selected anchor operators can be used to support operating costs or additional manpower to monitor children’s attendance and help parents to address the challenges that they face in sending their children to pre-school regularly. In 2023, the majority of children from lower-income families had a 75 per cent attendance rate. A spokesman for E-Bridge said these children attend school regularly, except when they were sick or away.
He said that local data also indicates that children who attend pre-school from age three are less likely to require additional learning support in primary school. Ms Chng said that one child at the pre-school had irregular attendance as she was reluctant to get out of bed in the morning and refused to shower or get dressed for school.
Distance to pre-school is also an issue – if the nearest centre has no vacancies, some parents are not motivated to take their child to one farther away from home. Ms Tan Bee Joo, senior director and group lead of family services at Children’s Society, said some lower-income families it helps are unaware of the value of pre-school education, and have to juggle work and childcare schedules.
They moved in with their grandparents in Clementi, and found it difficult to take their child to school due to the distance between the home and the pre-school in Sengkang.