Pre-schools can engage relief teachers from staff pool set up by ECDA

Pre-schools in need of relief teachers can tap a centralised pool of staff from two service providers appointed by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA).

- Elisha Tushara

The two recruitment agencies Cultivar and RecruitFirst — have a combined pool of more than 800 staff, along with over 1,600 leads that ECDA has given. These include former early childhood educators and programme staff who have consented to being contacted.

ECDA had announced in August 2024 that it was setting up a relief staff pool that all pre-schools would have access to, with the aim of easing manpower shortages and supporting pre-school teachers with work-life balance.

The pre-school sector has ramped up capacity to take in more children. As at end-2024, the sector had more than 23,000 early childhood educators, but will need another 3,500 by 2025 to support its expansion.

Babilou Family Singapore which runs 60 pre-school centres as part of chains like KiddiWinkie Schoolhouse and Little Footprints Preschool - has drawn manpower from the centralised relief staff pool since September 2024, alongside other vendors.

It uses this service when permanent staff are away on medical, hospitalisation, maternity or annual leave, and to bridge short-term gaps.

A spokeswoman for Babilou said that while it has internal resources to cross-deploy staff, the ECDA initiative offers quick access to a larger pool of relief staff.