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| Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman urges childcare
centres to reach out to children from low-income families. |
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yourselves: What can you do to reach out to children from families
that form the bottom 20 per cent of our society?” That was the
challenge Dr Mohd Maliki Osman, Parliamentary Secretary for
Community Development, Youth and Sports, put to some 700 child
care practitioners and participants who attended this year’s
Child Care Seminar on 7 September.
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| Access to pre-school education gives children
a good start. |
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Dr Maliki Osman was the Guest-of-Honour
at this annual event, now in its seventh year. The theme of the seminar,
“Towards an Inclusive Society: Building an Inclusive Culture” focused
on providing access to pre-school education for children from all
income levels. Today, less than 10 per cent of children in child care
centres come from low-income households. Cost is a key factor, and
Dr Maliki urged child care centres to make a greater effort to enrol
children from low-income families. There are already two schemes in
place to help such families – the Healthy Start Programme and the
Centre-based Financial Assistance Scheme for Child Care (CFAC).
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| Riza Partoredjo receiving her award from
Dr Maliki Osman. |
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In a move to raise
staff professionalism and standards of care, MCYS has revised the
training targets for child care centres. All supervisors must now
attain the Diploma in Pre-School Education Leadership by January 2007
and one in every four teachers per centre has to have the Diploma
in Pre-School Teaching by January 2008. The training targets set by
MCYS in 1999, which requires all supervisors and one teacher per centre
to be trained at the Diploma level by end 2004, have been met. |
This year, the Early Childhood Award went to Ms Riza Partoredjo from
Etonhouse Pre-School. The 33-year-old has been a child care teacher
for six years and is truly passionate about her work.
Often seen in her kebaya, Riza imparts to the children not just their
lessons but also important values in life. She often uses art to reach
out to children. Riza also sees each child as a special individual
with varying levels of capability, and she works accordingly to empower
them. She has a clear philosophy of an inclusive culture – which is
about including everything and everybody regardless of issues that
make us different.
She said: “If teaching is education’s vehicle, I have willingly strapped
myself to the driver’s seat. If effective teaching is the destination,
I accept my responsibility to transport my passengers, the children,
along that journey.” 
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