Hi OP,


Did you have further update from MEWR?

I recently had the same query as you. My dd is currently in a student care centre below a HDB void deck, every time I fetch her and open their main door, I can feel the stale air. The people inside are probably already adapted to it. I feel that the lack of ventilation in such student care and childcare centre can affect their learning abilities.

And once her classmate vomited in class, my dd fell sick to fever the next day. Coincidence or not I dunno. But the lack of ventilation could have played a part.

Few years ago when looking for childcare centre for my 2 kids, I purposely looked for centres that are not air-conditioned. They hardly fell sick and are usually still mentally and physically active when I pick them up at 6pm after a whole day in school. I worried about the kids that spends hours in air-conditioned centre, especially those using split aircons.

I agreed there is a lack of oversight for these centres. There are guidelines and regulations for the commercial, residential and healthcare indoor environments, but these student care and childcare centre may have been left out, even though fresh air is even more crucial for childrens development. It may take very long before the govt can come out with something that will truly impact the people affected. I don’t want my kids to wait that long before something is done.

As parents, we can spread awareness on the importance of ventilation. Student care and child care centres should find ways to ventilate the class rooms, either by mechanical ventilation (costly), or perhaps open all the windows and doors 1 hour before the centres open, to allow an air change and let out the stale air, and perhaps one more time in the middle of the day, while the air con / fans/ circulators are running so as to push the air out.