Vishaalini Vasanthanathan, NTUC First Campus’s Development Support Specialist (in green shirt), and Oblena Angela Mari Zulueta, English Teacher, My First Skool at 49 Rivervale Crescent (far right) engaging 4-year-old Evelyn Lai (left) and her classmates in an activity sorting colours.

From 2025, NTUC First Campus’s (NFC) charity arm Bright Horizons Fund (BHF) will commit $5 million a year, up from $3 million, to support preschoolers in NFC’s My First Skool (MFS) centres in four areas: financial, learning and development, health and well-being, and social. A total of 7,000 preschoolers from lower-income families will stand to benefit from this move.

Mr Heng Chee How, chairman of BHF, said the fund’s four pillars of support for lower-income families are important to help them holistically, instead of just lowering fees for preschool.

“First, we lower the barrier to come to school. Don’t let the fee be the hurdle… Then (come) the professional and technical support interventions,” he said.

Mr Heng, who is also Senior Minister of State for Defence, said that it is equally important to work on a family’s confidence and social skills, provide family support and form partnerships with the families for the good of the children.

“When they can see that what we’re doing is actually value-adding, and they can see the improvement in their children, they can then see the hope,” he said.

NFC’s Chief Child Support Officer Louisa Chng said the fund, which was started in 2008, has evolved from mostly providing financial aid through school fee subsidies and support for schooling essentials such as uniforms, field trip expenses and Kindergarten 2 graduation expenses. More than half of the money will be used to enhance learning and development support programmes for children.

Since January 2024, an additional 800 children and their families have benefited from the fund, after support was extended to families whose monthly gross household income is below $6,000, compared with $4,500 and below previously. The fund now supports about 6,400 preschoolers in MFS centres, which is nearly 30 per cent of enrolled pupils.

In addition, NFC’s learning and development support programme – the Development Support Specialist programme – will be extended to 16 MFS preschool centres in 2025, up from eight.

Launched in 2023, this programme sees four Development Support Specialists supporting 60 children, from Playgroup to Kindergarten 2, who require medium level of early intervention support for developmental delays. These include children currently attending the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (Eipic), those on the Eipic wait list, as well as those who have yet to be formally diagnosed as needing early intervention support.

In 2025, it aims to more than double this support, catering to 135 children, with nine Development Support Specialists.

BHF also supports families’ health and well-being through various initiatives such as an infant nutrition programme, which provides cash vouchers from $200 to $800 yearly for families to purchase essential items, such as diapers and milk powder for their children up to the age of three.

Media coverage

Straits Times Online (26 August 2024)

Straits Times Print (27 August 2024)

Berita Harian Online (27 August 2024)

Berita Harian Print (27 August 2024)