新加坡内政部长答复议员：为了更好照顾发展障碍儿童，新加坡将推婴幼儿早期介入计划

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for her questions. Firstly, yes, I had mentioned that we will be introducing an EIPIC-Care pilot and that this is a training programme for caregivers of two to three-year-olds with developmental needs. And the reason why we want to do so is that the international studies have shown that parents, they are the early educators, early role models in their children's lives and they are in the best position to embed intervention related to social, emotional skills. And this happens, this can happen at home. So that is the intent. This will be a six-month programme and the caregivers will be learning from professionals through group workshops and individual coaching sessions on how to support their child's development at home.

On her second question, I had shared that we are launching more places when it comes to EIPIC, by increasing our capacity by 1,200 places. This was in 2023 and this was already a 26% increase from 2022. And in 2024, we will launch four more early intervention centres and increase our capacity by 1,500 places. These numbers are not small.

And if you look at it in terms of percentage, we are expanding our Government-funded places to serve the children from 60% of children who require medium to high levels of early intervention moving from 60% coverage to 80% coverage. So just think about it in terms of percentage terms, this is already a very, very large increase.

And what that means, obviously, is that we have to bring in more professionals into the space; but we are also extremely mindful that these professionals will obviously have to be adequately-trained and they would also have to be aware of the norms that we have in our society. And very importantly, to be able to work with our parents; the parents of these children with developmental needs.

So, where there are specific specialisations, for instance, it could be speech therapy, could be play therapy. Where possible, we would look at bringing in international staff to cope with and to be helpful. But I think we would like to keep a core group of educators in Singapore and we will definitely be training more of these educators because it is important that we are able to take care of these children with developmental needs, with educators who are trained in Singapore and who are trusted by our parents here in Singapore.

The Chairman: I know Mr Giam you have raised your hands several times. I had given priority to those who have filed cuts first. You can have the floor now.

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: Thank you, Sir. I did file a cut on this. I am very glad to hear that MSF is planning to professionalise and subsidise childminding services.

So, my question for Minister of State Sun is, can I ask how this will affect existing informal childminders? I have residents who look after their neighbours' infants and kids after school and these are usually older women who are not highly educated and may not be prepared to be formally employed by childminding operators. So, they may have difficulties completing formal courses and passing written tests. So how will these informal childminders and the parents who engage their services, be able to tap on the subsidies that MSF is offering under this programme?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his question. Our intent is to have more options for parents, which means that if there is an existing arrangement between a nanny or an infant childminder in the community with a parent, we are not going to go in there and change the arrangements. The informal arrangements can continue.

But because we are launching a pilot and when we launch a pilot, we do hope that the results from that pilot will guide us in being able to have it more as a permanent programme. So, we have to make sure then that the parameters are such that it is sustainable and, therefore, we will need to have certain standards in place.

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