40,000 new infant care, childcare places over next five years

Govt-backed outfits to cater to 80% of pre-schoolers, up from over 65% now

- Chin Soo Fang

There will be close to 40,000 new infant care and childcare places made available by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) and five anchor operators, from 2025 to 2029.

These will include about 6,000 new infant care places to cater to increased demand.

Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli announced this at the Early Childhood Celebrations event, which was held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre on Nov 2.

He said this will ensure that government-supported pre-schools can cater to 80 per cent of pre-schoolers in the medium term, up from the more than 65 per cent enrolled today.

The 40,000 new places by 2029 will add to the 60,000 developed in the last decade.

Mr Masagos said that to make the pre-school subsidy application more seamless, parents will be able to apply for subsidies directly to ECDA online, instead of through pre-schools, via the LifeSG application.

This new process will be rolled out in phases from Dec 9.

It was earlier announced during Budget 2024 that from Jan 1, 2025, full-day childcare fee caps at anchor and partner operators will be reduced by $40 to $640 and $680 (excluding goods and services tax), respectively, a month.

From Dec 9, all lower-income families with a gross monthly household income of $6,000 and below will qualify for the maximum amount of childcare subsidies for their income tier.

This means that parents can expect to pay $3 to $115, or up to 2 per cent of their income, for childcare at anchor operators, with further reductions in 2025. This will benefit more than 17,000 additional children.