(Op-ed published by Today, Nov. 8, 2013)
By Trisha Craig
Over the past year, the Government has announced new measures and sources of funding to improve pre-school education in Singapore.
In addition to incentivising operators to hire more qualified teachers at better salaries, proposing schemes to keep pre-school affordable for low- and middle-income families and offering more scholarship money for prospective teachers, the creation of 16,000 more pre-school places is envisioned by 2017.
More places mean more choice for parents, which should be especially welcome news to working mums and dads if centres are nearer their homes or jobs. Yet, it also means, at least in the short run, that the shortage of teachers is likely to be an issue with which the sector will continue to grapple.
High teacher turnover at the pre-school level is a feature of Singapore and among the factors that account for its relatively low ranking globally in pre-school quality. Continue reading …
trishacraig 
This article resonates what I am going through right now as a student in the ECE field. Although I am glad to hear that wages are improving and the field itself is growing, but the improvements are slow and centralized. Some employers can pay teachers more but what about other childcare employers? I feel like most employment opportunities I have are with those who have less funding and as a child educator, the wages are a turn off. I will have at least a Master Teacher level with an B.A. but I am finding the amount of work and level of pay are highly uncorrelated.
Although there are some childcare centers who can offer a higher wage, there will still be other centers offering a much lower wage (and much lower tuition). I feel like this all revolves around the level of quality the childcare center provides. If the center is of quality, parents will pay more, therefore teachers will be paid more. However, parents need to be educated on quality and what is out there, while a quality rating system needs to be implemented.
My blog talks about quality rating system for childcare centers, please visit it and leave your thoughts. Thank you.
– Dana