SUPERVISION OF KINDERGARTENS

Mr Bernard Rodrigues asked the Minister for Education, in view of the opportunity that can be afforded to anti-national elements to poison the minds of young children, if he will tighten up the supervision of kindergartens or consider bringing them within the state educational system.

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, most kindergartens in Singapore are supervised in one way or another by the Government or a quasi-Government organisation. These are private kindergartens registered with the Ministry of Education, those organised and supervised by the People's Association, and creches and play centres organised and supervised by the Department of Social Welfare. Owing to Government supervision of one kind or another, it would be extremely difficult for anti-national elements to poison the minds of young children unnoticed. To date there has been no report of such incidents in these kindergartens.

However, for quite some time now, the demand for places in kindergartens for pre-school age children has been very great. This results in the establishment of a large number of unregistered kindergartens which fall into three categories: (1) those run by private individuals catering for the upper and middle classes, mainly in the private residential estates; (2) those run by religious organisations in Housing Board Estates or near squatter areas in the City area; (3) those run by political parties, particularly by the anti-national Barisan Sosialis. These kindergartens do not come under the supervision of the Government and are, therefore, open to exploitation by the anti-national elements, particularly so in the case of those run by the Barisan Sosialis in the rural areas. Besides the opportunity afforded them to poison the minds of the young children in their kindergarten classes, the teachers of these classes and their helpers, who are mostly members of the Barisan Sosialis, very often exploit the opportunity of meeting the parents of these children and putting across their insidious anti-national propaganda. Furthermore, these kindergarten classes also provide a source of income to sustain the livelihood of the Barisan Sosialis members. However, the Government does not favour the negative approach in dealing with this problem by closing down all the kindergartens run by the anti-national elements. To do so would fall into the trap of the Barisan Sosialis who are bound to exploit the issue by accusing the Government of being unsympathetic towards the welfare of the children of the poor living particularly in the rural areas.

There is a real demand for pre-school education by Singapore parents in recent years as a result of improvement in the standard of living and the awareness of the value of an early education for children. This is, therefore, a social problem which should be better dealt with in a more positive manner. Since 1964, the Government has, through the People's Association, established kindergarten classes in the community centres to meet the needs of the rural parents and to counter the influence of kindergarten classes run by the anti-national elements. By May this year, the People's Association have established 159 kindergarten classes with a total enrolment of 5,900 pupils. The number of classes has since increased to 349 and the total enrolment to 12,500, whereas both the number of classes run by the anti-national elements and the total enrolment have drastically dwindled. Furthermore, a great majority of the kindergarten age children for classes next year have been registered by the People's Association.

While it is desirable that all kindergartens should be supervised by the Government and be brought under the Republic educational system, the cost of implementing this by way of capital and recurrent expenditure is, however, prohibitive. The Government, therefore, does not envisage bringing the kindergartens within the State educational system in the foreseeable future.