SINGAPORE — Following the dismissal of a part-time teacher from NTUC My First Skool for alleged child abuse, the authorities are looking at ways to “strengthen the system” including pairing up new pre-school educators with more experienced ones and mandating operators to send their teachers for professional development.

A hotline could also be set up to provide advice or counselling services for pre-school teachers.

These proposals come as the My First Skool centre at Toa Payoh Block 192 was served a warning letter on Wednesday, which stated that its licence tenure has been cut from 24 months to six months.

The centre is also required to comply with certain conditions such as adjusting its programmes to be more age-appropriate and improving the classroom layout. It was also ordered to review its standard operating procedure on incident reporting.

Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) officers will conduct more frequent visits to the centre, and its licence could be renewed if the centre demonstrates that it complies with the remedial measures.

Earlier this month, a 51-year-old part-time teacher at the centre was arrested after closed-circuit television footage showed her allegedly dragging a three-year-old boy across the floor and pushing him to the floor with force. The boy suffered a fractured shin.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a visit to KLC School of Education yesterday, Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing said the lessons learnt from the episode have been “disseminated across the whole sector”.

On Wednesday, the ECDA also sent out an advisory on childcare management practices to all operators.

He said: “After all that’s said and done, it’s very important that we build trust in the sector. Ultimately, taking care of someone’s child or our own is an issue that has to do with the trust and this ... must be a tripartite trust between the parents, teachers and operators.”

On suggestions to install CCTV cameras in all pre-schools, Mr Chan stressed that “we don’t want a situation whereby CCTV erodes the trust”.

He said: “CCTV cannot replace the trust between the teacher and the parents. Ultimately, that must be the key.”

Mr Chan reiterated the need to support the teachers who “undergo a lot of stresses”. “It is our job to support them, parents, teachers, operators must all come together to support the teachers.”

He added: “They must be able to have access to support, either professional support or emotional support whenever they run into difficulties.”

Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Ang Hin Kee, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Education Services Union, said that his union is working with ECDA to collect feedback on some of the proposals to provide better support for pre-school teachers.

Mr Ang said that, based on initial feedback, some teachers have suggested that operators be made to ensure a certain number of professional development hours for their teachers as part of licensing requirements.

“Leaving it to the teacher to self-initiate (training) while being at work for the whole day, and find time to maximise these available training programmes is not fair, you need to get the operator involved,” said Mr Ang.

He added that the proposal could help attract more teachers to join the sector.

Meanwhile, NTUC First Campus Chief Executive Officer Chan Tee Seng said in a press statement that a “series of immediate measures” have been taken to assure parents of the well-being of the children at the Toa Payoh centre. These initiatives include enhancing parent communications and stepping up support for teachers. Going forward, it is setting up an independent review panel to assess complex cases of injury, accident or mishandling.

Childcare centres are issued licences of different tenures — six months, 12 months or 24 months — depending on whether they are able to meet licensing requirements. The length of the licence tenure indicates the quality of a centre.

ECDA CEO Lee Tung Jean said there were processes in place to transfer children from errant centres to other centres, if necessary.

As of June 30, there were 17 centres that have a six-month licensing tenure — or 1.6 per cent — out of a total of 1,065 centres across the island. About a quarter of the centres have a 12-month licensing tenure and more than 70 per cent have a 24-month licensing tenure.