Government calls for Pre-School Anchor Operators proposal

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Government Opens Call for Proposals to Select New Pre-School Anchor Operators


Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing announced the opening of the call for proposals for new Pre-School Anchor Operators today.

The Anchor Operator scheme for kindergarten and child care operators was first introduced in 2009. It provides funding support to eligible operators to scale up the provision of good quality and affordable early childhood care and education services for the mass market.

The eligibility criteria for the scheme have been reviewed to allow more potential operators to be considered. With the revised criteria, all interested pre-school operators that meet the eligibility criteria can submit proposals. The key eligibility criteria are:

• The Proposer must be a current operator of child care centres and/or kindergartens, with at least 10 centres or providing 1,000 pre-school places, and have a good track record of providing quality early childhood services.

• The Proposer must demonstrate strong regulatory compliance and governance, including having or establishing an independent governing body.

• The Proposer must be legally and financially liable for all operations under the Anchor Operator scheme.

• To ensure financial stability and sustainability, the Proposer must be prepared to provide and maintain a financial guarantee equivalent to 6 months of operating costs, or $10m, whichever is lower.

The grants, which are currently only available for the PAP Community Foundation and the National Trades Union Congress' My First Skool, will now be open to commercial pre-school operators as long as they set up a distinct company to ensure that the Government funds are used to benefit needy children and uplift the sector instead of boosting their profits.

Pre-school operators will also have to adhere to fee caps for their programmes. For example, the fees are a full-day childcare programme cannot exceed $720. These moves are part of the Government plans to increase pre-school places by 20,000 by 2018. A total of $3 billion will be pumped into the sector in the next five years.

Pre-school operators here have been watching closely the plan to expand the number of operators entitled to government grants, which could lead to a shake-up in the industry.


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