SINGAPORE: A fee increase is in the pipeline at some People's Action Party (PAP) Community Foundation (PCF) kindergartens and childcare centres, especially those which are losing money.
While fees will not increase "across the board", a PCF spokesperson told MediaCorp that a PCF branch may consider doing so with justifications such as new curricula or special programmes.
The spokesperson
said in an email reply: "The need to increase fees is based on the
branch's finances. Sometimes, the fund-raising efforts by the advisers
help to cover the cost of operations. But this is not the long-term
solution."
She added: "Sometimes, unavoidably, the fees have to
increase a little to help cover the cost of operations. Hence, fee
increase, if any, is made by the branch, and not PCF-wide."
The
PCF, the largest operator with about six in 10 of pre-school children
here on its books, has 240 kindergartens and 65 childcare centres spread
across 87 branches in Singapore. Fees ranged from S$90 to S$120 per
month as of August last year.
Its response came after Senior
Minister of State Grace Fu told MediaCorp that fees at the Yuhua PCF
centres, where she is branch chairperson, needed to be set at "a
sustainable level".
Nursery classes there cost S$105, which she
said was "lower than many operators", even though it has been raising
the pay of its teachers to attract those with better qualifications. She
added that it has also spent S$800,000 over the last three years to
upgrade its centres.
Ms Fu, who met with the staff last week,
said the Yuhua PCF reviews its fees annually before the start of
enrolment. She said: "We expect our operations to be slightly in the red
this financial year. Our fees will have to be set at a sustainable
level to keep the operations going. We'll ensure that parents who have
financial difficulties are helped to keep their children in our
centres."
Woodlands PCF, which has eight kindergartens and one
childcare centre, is another branch where a fee increase is being
considered, said Sembawang Group Representation Constituency (GRC)
Member of Parliament Ellen Lee.
Said Ms Lee: "The fees that we're
collecting from parents aren't really sustainable in the long term to
keep up with the expenses we have to incur in terms of ... salaries and
improvements we made for the centres."
While she is for the idea
of raising fees, the question is when, she said, noting that the branch
will have to be cognisant of the "general climate" and complaints about
cost of living.
She added: "We're trying to hold out as long as
we could but, say, what if we start to lose teachers because we can't
pay ... There's so much poaching going on."
Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC
MP Hri Kumar, who agrees on the need for sustainability, said raising
fees is always an option for his Thomson PCF branches, although no
decision has been made yet.
Still, some are not considering fee
hikes. PCF centres at Keat Hong branch in Chua Chu Kang GRC started
breaking even last year, for instance. MP Zaqy Mohamed attributed this
to a different business model: Benchmarking teachers' key performance
indicators to enrolment figures and adopting more innovative programmes.
He said this would stave off a fee increase "for at least a few years".
One
parent whose children are in PCF expressed his reservations of a
possible fee hike. Mr Shawn Koh, a private tutor and father of three,
said: "If they want to further increase fees, there may be parents who
withdraw completely from kindergarten education."
He added that most parents who send their children to PCF are those "who can't afford" the fees of private kindergartens.
The
PCF spokesperson said it will help in the application of financial
assistance and parents would be informed of any fee increase about three
months in advance.
The last major round of increase, by 50-odd PCF branches, was in 2008, due to rising operating costs.
- TODAY
Kebun Baru PCF kindergarten to raise fees for PRs, foreigners
SINGAPORE: Even as some PAP Community Foundation (PCF) branches mull over a possible fee increase for its kindergartens and childcare centres, at least one branch will go ahead with a fee hike - but only for its foreign enrolment.
Kebun Baru PCF's two centres will increase fees by S$10 and S$20 from next month for children of permanent residents (PRs) and foreigners, respectively.
PRs will pay between
S$110 and S$130 for nursery fees at the two centres and between $120
and $140 if their child is in kindergarten. For foreigners, the new fees
are between S$140 and S$160 and between S$150 and S$170, respectively.
Letters
signed by the branch administrator informing parents of the revised
fees, which MediaCorp obtained a copy of, were sent out as early as
April.
Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency (GRC) Member
of Parliament Inderjit Singh, the chairperson of Kebun Baru PCF, said
the decision was made last year at the GRC level.
"We want to
differentiate what we're charging to locals and foreigners. Costs have
gone up, and to keep PCF education as affordable as possible for
Singaporeans, I think we need to ... have it more differentiated," he
told MediaCorp.
The fee gap from next month at Kebun Baru will be
as much as S$50 a month. But it remains to be seen if this will stave
off any fee hike for local children.
Mr Singh said the branch
will still have to review operations routinely, that is, every six
months. With teacher salaries forming the bulk of its costs and as wages
increase in general, the branch will look at fees as part of its
reviews, said Mr Singh, who noted that PRs and foreigners form a small
proportion - about 5 per cent - of total intake at Kebun Baru.
In
fact, the small proportion of foreign pupils is one factor that other
branches might take into consideration. Sembawang GRC MP Ellen Lee said:
"If the numbers (of foreign intake) are very far and few between, is
there a need to have this differentiation?"
Ms Lee's Woodlands
PCF branch is among the centres considering whether to charge more to
cover costs, as reported yesterday in Today, and she said that falling
enrolment is another factor against greater fee differentiation.
"If
there's going to be shortage of places, then you can give priority to
Singaporeans ... (but) how much can you recover if the enrolment is so
small? I don't think we need to necessarily create any difficulties,"
she said.
-- TODAY
They are slowly but surely working their way up on all sorts of increases after elections.
They start with the youngest ones first.