Press Releases
More Initiatives to Strengthen Professional Development of Early Childhood Educators
11 Oct 2024
MORE INITIATIVES TO STRENGTHEN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS
283 Training Awards and Scholarships awarded to train and support Early Childhood (EC) Educators
1 Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli announced three professional development and mentoring initiatives to strengthen educators’ professional practices at the annual Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) Scholarships and Training Awards (TA) Presentation Ceremony today. 283 aspiring and in-service educators also received their awards, including one ECDA Scholarship recipient and 13 TA Commendation Award recipients for exemplary achievements during their studies.
2 Since 2015, ECDA has invested over $104 million to support more than 3,300 EC educators in pursuing their career aspirations and to improve the professional quality of the sector. ECDA Scholarships are given to in-service educators with the potential to take on larger job roles in the EC sector, while ECDA Training Awards support aspiring educators to fulfil their career goals and support the sector’s workforce needs.
3 ECDA launched the revised Early Years Development Framework (EYDF) last year to guide learning for children from birth to 3 years. In early 2025, educators can expect an updated EYDF Educators’ Guide (EG), designed to support educators in translating the key concepts of EYDF 2023 into daily classroom practices. The EYDF EG will feature case scenarios set in Singapore’s context, with suggested strategies and reflective exercises. These can be used by educators to reflect on their centre’s practices and raise the quality of their centres’ early years programmes.
4 In the second half of 2025, ECDA will roll out a new Quality Teaching Tool (QTT), the first locally-developed pedagogical tool for EC professionals. The tool is co-developed with the Centre for Research in Child Development in the National Institute of Education (NIE), taking into account local and international research. Given the progress made by the EC sector over the past decade, the QTT will be crucial in providing a common language for educators on quality teaching. Educators can use the tool to identify their strengths and areas of growth, while honing their pedagogical skills with their centre leader and senior educators. This will promote self-reflection and collaborative professional learning in the sector.
5 Fundamentally, the QTT aims to support children’s well-being, learning and holistic development in three key areas: (a) build trusting relationships between educators and children by fostering positive interactions; (b) promote children’s well-being through nurturing values, social and emotional competencies and learning dispositions; and (c) design learning environment and experiences that engage children in play, extend their thinking and language development, and develop their self-regulation and executive functions.
6 By end-2024, a revised Mentoring Guide will be available to support mentors, who are senior educators to be more equipped to mentor and guide the younger educators. This is complemented by additional mentoring resources such as action plan and lesson observation template, as well as training available at the National Institute of Early Childhood Development (NIEC).
Please refer to Annex A - D for more information.