Sign-on bonuses, pay hikes and referral carrots as pre-schools woo teachers

3,500 more educators needed by 2025 to support expansion of early childhood sector 

- Amelia Teng

Several pre-school operators are actively trying to recruit teachers amid an ongoing review to improve teachers' well-being and working conditions in the early childhood sector.

In November 2022, PAP Community Foundation (PCF) Sparkletots - the largest operator here with more than 40,000 children in about 360 pre-schools islandwide - introduced a sign-on bonus of up to $5,000 for new teachers joining them from Dec 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023.

PCF chief executive Victor Bay told The Straits Times that the referral fee for staff who recommend friends or family members to join them has also been raised by 50 percent to 60 percent from December 2022.

The eligibility criteria for staff referral have also been tweaked to allow more employees across different categories to refer candidates, with payouts for successful referrals to be given out earlier, he added.

In addition, PCF has also raised salaries for all teachers and new hires. It currently has a pool of 6,300 teachers.

From January 2023, fresh graduates and new mid-career entrants graduating with an early childhood diploma approved by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) who join PCF can expect a starting salary of at least $2,800, up from about $2,600 in 2022.

The ECDA announced in October 2022 that teachers at government-supported pre-schools can expect their monthly salaries to increase by 10 per cent to 30 per cent over the next two years.

Singapore has more than 23,000 early childhood educators, and another 3,500 are needed by 2025 to support the sector's expansion.

Scarcity of manpower in the early childhood sector remains a key challenge, said Mr Bay. "PCF will embark on an intensive recruitment drive over the next one to two years, and this includes aggressively reaching out to the regional market to fill the manpower gap," he added.