Petition to ministers to regulate pre-school fees

[rosnyus]

hi james,


i support your petition. My #1 is currently at pat schoolhouse and i plan to put my #2 in the same centre in 2014. I shudder to think what would be the fees for my #2 in 2014

Do you know that in Macau, kindergarten education is free and compulsory? even for private kindergarten with high standards of curriculum and teachers, the government pays for them…unlike our first world government. i know this as i just came back from an official visit there…

[Hacheongkai]

James, I fully agree with you and I will email you shortly.


I had been an affected parent of this B$%^ton Montessorri till early this month.

You are right, this school has always been increasing the school fees without any apparant improvement in any quality except for their chinese teachers.

The reasons provided by the school for increasing school fees are ridiculous. If I am not wrong, they quoted an increase in rental of the premises as a reason. A 90 percent increase had caused them to increase school fees. Dun tell me that they were operating at a loss every year before that. Also, the standard of the teachers there are appalling except for the chinese teacher whom they recruited overseas.

They advised us parents to revise with our kids school work at home in terms of writing and spelling.If i can do it myself after work, why shld i pay them monstrous amounts to teach my kid? Even their story books r just photostated and its so boring without any colours and the kids are made to bring home the books to read with their parents when they are clearly not taught well enough to do that.

The principal just emphasises doing work sheets after worksheets and pushing the kids along even when they are not ready. Once, my son showed me his writing book and he was taught a word twixt or something. As a local tertiary educated mum whom cant claim to know everything, I asked the teacher what did this word mean. She told me its like twitching yr eyes>Oh my gawd, when i went back to look at the meaning of this word, it was totally not what she had explained. I wonder what is the point of learning this word when the child or even teacher herself cant even explain to me what this word means.

When I told the teachers that i am a full time career woman and that i put my son there to study not to make me as a parent teach him so much at home. What is the point of sending your kid to school and you have to do so much at home. With the amounts that I am paying, I can jolly well buy my own materials and homeschool him myself.

Also, the playground was in such a bad shape and so tattered looking, I was discussing this with the other parents and they agreed. To my surprise, it was renovated early this year and after that, a price increase was looming in the background. True enough, they increased the fees. I have lost touch with how many times they have done so in recent years.

The school concert is another bug bear that I refuse to back down. Its a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a concert that is organised for them to make a profit. The premises they use is Ntuc Auditorium and the place is so huge and as what James had said, they dun allow the use of recording devices by parents not even to take pictures of our own kids and not for commercial uses. Sad to say, the standard of their own VCD recording is so poor and looks like a worse cousin of those VCDS bought in Johor or China. The sound quality is poor not to say and also we can see the heads bobbing up and down. Your guess is as good as mine. The heads are of the parents who happened to be standing infront of the camera. Why do they tell parents not to tape using their own devices? Its because they record it from such a far distance that incase any audience stand up,the images of their heads would be captured by the camera. What a joke!!!

Also,the chinese books they use in school had been in use for several years as my elder son had used them in another childcare many years. A parent had also told me that comparing the same set of books that her son used in another kindergarten earlier on, the same set costs more at this B.Montessori.

There are many other reasons which are too long to explain here and I hope that more parents would join James in this petition.

To clarify, I do not know James personally. I had read about this petition on asiaone and had decided to contact the writer at SPH to let me know where to find this petition.

i fully back you up, James and would email you soon.

[mommypoon21]

What! preschool free in macau! It will never happen in capitalist spore. Crazy the childcare centre fees in spore.

[mommypoon21]

I will support your petition but I know govt will not do anything. Will just give standard answer

[DesertWind]

mommypoon21:

I will support your petition but I know govt will not do anything. Will just give standard answer

Hi mommy,
Please petition anyway. Nowadays we cannot afford to think like this. And I actually do have SOME faith in this govt. and in Big Brother that something will be done [which reminds me I gotta go 'LIKE' his page now...]. If we don't speak up, for sure nothing will get going.

[JazN]

is there a facebook page to "like" or just send email directly?

[phtthp]

parents,


may read
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31870

[DesertWind]

This morning, this issue was brought up and discussed on the radio FM90.5 at about 8.30 am (I was in a taxi and happen to hear it). If I am not wrong one of the DJs was Brian. They supplied a telephone number for parents to call in to talk about the price hike of preschool fees. This issue is getting the attention in public so certainly our voices are heard.


Nonetheless, parents with pre-schoolers please continue to support this petition by sending an email to Mr James Tan who is gathering email "signatures" before sending the petition to the relevant authorities. We should not be keeping quiet about this as the fees really hit us hard.

[DesertWind]

A writer to the ST Forum page disagreed that this petition should go to the government. Writer’s view is that pre-school education is like shopping for luxury goods. Those who cannot afford to go high-fees preschool should just go for one that they can afford. Namely PCF and NTUC chains.


Furthermore, writer mentioned that parents should go direct to the operator of the pre-school instead of looking to the government and petitioning.

I disagree with the above mainly because:

Kindergartens and Childcare centres fall under the control of MOE and the MCYS. Why is it not right to petition to the relevant authorities? Especially for MCYS who is providing subsidies for working mothers SGD300 per month for full-day etc. which is suppose to provide relief to the parents, surely they would want to ensure that CCC operators are not exploiting this and increasing fees to inflict the same pain despite the subsidies?

Furthermore, pricing of kindergartens and CCC MUST surely be of some concern to MOE/MCYS? If the government does not think this is their responsibility, why set up the Education Ministry in the first place?

Why does the MOE/MCYS allow overseas operators to come into Singapore to buy up local preschools and then charge sky-high fees any time of the year as and when they wish without putting forth any warnings to such operators?

Learning Vision has various branches in government statutory boards, hospitals, polytechnics, goverment depts. like IRAS and MOM etc… I would have thought such "privileged" locations would be due to government’s effort to provide parents with CCC facilities at such "public" institutions which is truly commendable. But why does MCYS/MOE/ministries allows Foreign Operator(s) to buy up such pre-schools and then does not put in some form of controls over the pricing of the school fees?

I draw an example from the banking sector. MAS controls the banking sector tightly and efficiently. Recently, pricing guidelines and code of conduct when dealing with the consumers are very important. We can feel the controls by the various notices, guidelines and circulars sent addressing such topics and the banks got to toe the line on the various issues that MAS is looking into. We literally feel the heat (I work in a bank).

Likewise, as a parent, I am looking for such controls in the education sector. Where is the pricing guideline? Where is the control of licenses, ownership? I don’t feel it hence I strongly support the petition to the relevant ministries.

I strongly disagree that "shopping" for educational pre-school is like shopping for luxury branded goods. Pre-school is a very important aspect of childhood education that parents/children cannot do without. Furthermore, parents often have not much choices in terms of the locations as we can only choose CCC/kindergartens around our homes or workplaces. We are worried about uncontrolled price increases. We are worried about overseas operators buying up all the GOOD and WELL LOCATED CCC and THEN increase prices uncontrolled by the government, thereby holding us vulnerable parents hostage in the process.

Sure we can vote with our feet. There is no need to point this out to us. But we cannot vote with our feet anymore if ALL CCCs are owned by this same operator buying up all reputable pre-schools in SG (I am exaggerating this to proof my point).

We are appealing to the authorities for protection to vulnerable parents and control educational providers especially in the setting of fees and anti-competitive measures.

The petition is the most peaceful, civilized way we can think of to get our voices heard by the relevant authorities. To me, this is the right way to go.

[phtthp]

:goodpost: support fully!