Speech by Ong Ye Kung, Assistant Secretary-General of National Trades Union Congress at the Launch of the Professional Chapter for Early Childhood Educators on 2 Dec 09, Wednesday, 7.00pm at DXO, Esplanade Mall
Members of the NTUC Central Committee,
Brother Michael Tan, President of ESU,
Brother Zainudin Nordin, Executive Secretary of ESU,
Partners from WDA, MCYS, Association of Private Childcare Organisations and Association of Early Childhood Educators,
Brothers and sisters from the ECCE profession,
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. Good Evening and welcome to the launch of the professional chapter for early childhood educators by the Labour Movement.
Reaching to Different Communities
2. The mission of the Labour Movement is to help working people earn a better living and live a better life. As an all inclusive Labour Movement, we extend our reach and support to workers of all Collars, Ages and Nationalities.
3. It is not possible to be everything to everybody, and so we have to take a segmented approach, delivering different benefits to different communities of working people. Therefore, since 2006, we have launched communities such as nEbO for youngsters before working age, Young NTUC for the youths, U Family for parents, U Live for mature workers. We have also created a U Club to engage the non-working people, including retirees and home makers.
4. Despite these initiatives, our structure of communities still does not fully reflect the diverse needs of working people. One group which has very diverse needs is the professionals, managers, executives and technical workers (PMETs). Unlike rank and file workers, who have different Unions serving them, the Labour Movement does not have a similar structure to service PMETs. Furthermore, PMETs is a fast growing group, accounting for 55% of our labour force.
5. To serve them better, NTUC needs to appeal to their professional aspiration. We will start to set up a series of Professional Chapters, to reach out to PMETs coming from various industries, vocations or professions. For each chapter, NTUC will develop a deep understanding of the trends in the industry, and the skills and expertise needed for future growth. We will then pull together the most relevant training programmes, seminars or workshops, to help our members build capabilities, advance in their careers, and strengthen the industries for the long term.
Initiatives of the Professional Chapter for Childhood Educators
6. Today I am happy to launch the first of many series of Professional Chapters, which is the Professional Chapter for early childhood educators.
7. This Chapter was formed with the strong support of Labour Movement partners, comprising Education Services Union (ESU), Employability and Employment Institute (e2i), NTUC Membership Department and the SEED Institute. The Chapter will be spearheaded by the ESU.
8. There is no particular reason why we chose this sector as the pilot, other than the parties involved worked the fastest, have more ideas, and that this is a growing and changing sector. As the Singapore society tries to raise our fertility rate by providing more support to parents, the childcare and early childhood education sector will expand rapidly. As shared by MCYS last year, we expect to see an additional 200 more childcare centres being set up within these five years. This will translate to a projected addition of 2,400 early childhood educators to the 11,336 early childhood educators now. The Government is also raising the standards for the industry, in particular, the English standard of early childhood educators.
9. NTUC will provide the following professional development services to these members:
10. First, we will try to bring more PMETs into the sector. The companies under ESU will offer the vacancies. SEED Institute will provide the professional training. NTUC’s e2i will do the outreach to PMETs, and play the role of the matchmaker, pulling candidates, vacancies and training provider together. Through this approach, NTUC has helped bring in 350 early childhood educators into the sector this year.
11. Second, upgrade the expertise of current early childhood educators. Growing the sector should not be just about number of workers. We also need to deepen the capabilities of our corps of early childhood educators. The idea is not to move them to Masters or Doctorate degrees, but to support them to undergo programmes that are skills-based, practical, help them do their job better, and may in fact be pitched at Certificate or Advance Certificate level. Not very different from graduate finance executives obtaining Certified Financial Analysts status. We will develop these programmes with SEED Institute and also identify other programmes in the market.
12. One example is training of early childhood educators to help children with learning impediments. Studies have shown that about 15% of children have some form of learning impediments, such as dyslexia. With the right skills and techniques, our early childhood educators can identify these children, provide early intervention, and help them overcome these impediments early, than to have them suffer through school.
13. Other examples include workshop on Mentoring of Novice Teachers. This is conducted by SEED Institute, and the ESU will be sponsoring up to 35 ESU professional chapter members to attend the workshops in early 2010. Every year, ESU will also sponsor up to 5 ESU professional chapter members to attend international early childhood seminars, conferences or workshops.
14. Third, help workers meet new industry requirements. The Government has stipulated that with effect from January 2013, at least 75% of all pre-school teachers in a particular centre must obtain an O-Level credit in English Language, and possess a Diploma in Pre-school Teaching (DPE-T). The new requirements will also apply to new and existing mother tongue language teachers. But instead of a credit in English language, they will need a credit in their respective ‘O’ level mother tongue language.
15. NTUC supports these changes, as they will raise the standard of the industry and its workforce. But we only have slightly over 2 years to help existing workers in the industry meet these new requirements.
16. We will reach out to those without DPE-T and help them enroll into the programme. As for English Language proficiency, it may not be very practical for the existing workers to re-sit their O level English examinations. From Jan 2010, NTUC’s e2i and ESU will embark on a programme to put early childhood educators through a Computer Adaptive Test for English proficiency. This test is administered by the WDA, under the Employability Skills System (ESS). Today, the English and Numeracy proficiency certification under ESS is widely recognised and accepted by employers and industries, which explain why every month, about 4,500 workers are taking the tests to get their literacy and numeracy standards certified.
17. For those who do not score well, we will put them through the relevant ESS programme to upgrade their English proficiency level. We hope that by middle of next year, the Government will adopt ESS as an alternative to meeting O-level English requirement. This will open up a more accessible and practical avenue for existing early childhood educators to upgrade their English proficiency.
Conclusion
18. Today’s launch marks a couple of new milestones. It heralds a more proactive ESU that will now go all out to serve the professional development needs of its members. It also marks the start of NTUC’s new approach to membership – reaching out to growing group of PMETs, professional by profession, sector by sector.
19. Ultimately, when a Singapore worker hears about NTUC, he will not immediately associate our U logo with only rank and file and blue collar workers and discounts at Fairprice, but also PMETs and all the professional development opportunities we bring to them. That way, the Labour Movement will grow even stronger, and add more diversity and strength into our 540,000 strong membership base. With a growing Labour Movement, we can ensure that the three pillars of Tripartism – Government, Business and Labour – continue to be strong. And we can continue to maintain the industrial relations climate that make Singapore competitive, attractive to investors, and continue to create good jobs for our workers.
