Easing pre-school worries, giving parents assurance: Goh Pei Ming on supporting families

SINGAPORE - Smaller pre-school operators may find it easier to tap a new grant that will be rolled out to help them join a network of centres offering lower fees to families.

The criteria for the grant will be relaxed from the thresholds required for the government-supported partner operator (POP) scheme, to potentially include more smaller operators, said Senior Minister of State for Social and Family Development Goh Pei Ming.

More details will be announced by the end of 2026.

In an interview with The Straits Times, Goh acknowledged that there are smaller, individual centres that are “very passionate about what they do” and are popular with their immediate community.

Currently, pre-schools must belong to an operator of a certain size to qualify for the POP scheme, which requires operators to adhere to fee caps and meet quality standards.

Goh said the pre-schools’ scale is one criteria that has been relaxed so smaller operators can be considered for the grant.

The move comes as Singapore prepares to expand its network of government-supported pre-schools so lower fees can be made more widely available to families. By 2030, full-day childcare fees at these centres are set to fall to $150 a month, and infant care fees to $300 a month.

This is good news for families, but some private pre-schools worry that they will struggle to compete with these lower fees. After this was announced at the National Day Rally, Goh engaged pre-school operators who shared concerns about how the changes may affect them.

Some operators who have been unsuccessful in previous rounds are hoping the transformation grant, first announced by Goh on Aug 28, will offer another way into the POP network.

The network currently comprises 380 pre-school centres run by 33 operators, appointed for a five-year term from Jan 1, 2026, to Dec 31, 2030.

Eligible operators keen to join the network will receive support, Goh said, adding that greater competition in the sector will ultimately benefit children.

Increased competition would move pre-schools to “innovate and create a stronger value proposition,” said Goh, who was speaking to ST at the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) building in Caldecott about his first 1.5 years in politics.

“The sector will not become more uniform,” he said. “When we inject more competition, I expect it to be even more diverse, more colourful, and more exciting for our children.”

Early childhood education is among the issues foremost on his mind, shaped partly by his own experience as a father of three. The 43-year-old had raised the topic during his tea sessions - or interviews - while he was being considered for politics.

In 2017, his family had difficulties finding a pre-school spot for his three-year-old son when he was recalled from Jakarta, where he was serving as army attaché, to oversee the 2018 National Day Parade. They had not joined any pre-school waitlists at the time.

“I had a hard time trying to find a pre-school, and it wasn’t cheap, so my experiences of the pre-school landscape was coloured somewhat by that,” said Goh, a former brigadier-general who spent more than two decades in the military.

He was among several politicians who got promoted in the latest Cabinet reshuffle in July. He moved up a rung from minister of state in the Home Affairs Ministry and MSF, which he was appointed to after the general election.

ST is also interviewing other first-term MPs and office-holders with new appointments or promotions.

Since joining the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), Goh said he has come to appreciate how much the pre-school sector has progressed over the years, though he thinks more can be done.

The goal is to have pre-schools near residents’ homes, make them affordable and also of good quality, said Goh, who is chairing a new international advisory committee set up by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) in Sept 2026.

The committee, comprising five overseas experts, aims to raise standards in early childhood education and teacher development by drawing on global best practices.

Under its Quality Preschools 2030 plan, ECDA is also strengthening play-based and mother tongue language learning, improving training for educators and reviewing their workloads and working conditions.

If parents are not worried about pre-school costs, accessibility and quality, it could give them “a little bit more assurance” to start or grow their families, Goh said.

Growing ‘organic TFR’

Nudging more Singaporeans to form families is a key focus of the inter-agency Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup, which Goh is a part of. It will produce a full report in early 2027.

Being a parent himself helps him understand what needs to be done to alleviate pressure points parents face, said Goh.

He sees Singapore’s total fertility rate (TFR), which sank to a new low of 0.87 in 2025, as one of the country’s most difficult and strategically important challenges, given its implications for the economy.

“There’s only that much migration can do, and I think beyond a certain point, there’s a limit. I think we are close to that point, so that gives you some concern,” said Goh.

In his view, Singapore needs to encourage more “organic TFR”. But he acknowledged this was not easy.

Measures announced at the NDR, such as more childcare leave and the new SG Child Support Package, were necessary but more can be done to shift mindsets within society, he said.

“I think that is the harder part,” Goh added.

For instance, workplaces need to be genuinely family-friendly, rather than support families because of government policy, he said.

Another challenge the workgroup had was grappling with diverse groups with different views, said Goh, adding that the workgroup has to find a way to intervene without being too invasive.

Some couples need assurance on financial support and in workplaces, whereas others have ruled out having children altogether. Some prioritise their careers and other aspirations over family formation.

Singles who want to marry but have not met their life partners are another group, said Goh.

Following the NDR in August, some singles felt they had been left out amid the new sweeteners announced for parents and children.

Asked about their concerns, Goh said a family-friendly workplace culture would benefit everybody, including singles who care for aging parents.

“What we need to land on is perhaps a more mature landscape where co-workers can cover for one another, understand one another, that we all will have such needs. So I think it goes beyond just families with young children.”

Megan’s case ‘heart-wrenching’

His work at MSF has brought him into contact with families facing different challenges, including those caring for persons with disabilities (PWDs). In December 2025, he was tasked to chair a five-member task force to review support for PWDs across life stages.

The Taskforce on Assurance for Families with Persons with Disabilities released its report in October with several recommendations. These include a new employment support office for PWDs, support for future care planning, and training all front-line polyclinic staff to attend to people with intellectual disability and autism.

His work has also exposed him to harrowing cases of child abuse, such as the case of four-year-old Megan Khung, who was abused to death in 2020 by her mother and mother’s boyfriend.

Goh joined MSF while an independent panel was reviewing how Megan’s case was handled.

Reading about her case was heart-wrenching, he said.

“What was also hard to stomach was reading about what the protection ecosystem could have done to prevent the incident, and that there were opportunities where various agencies could have come in and prevented the tragedy for Megan, but that somehow all failed.”

Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli apologised after the panel published its report in October 2025, which revealed lapses at multiple points across the system.

In the past year, Goh has been involved in implementing the panel’s recommendations, including a new government unit to strengthen early detection of child abuse.

SAFER (Sensemaking Alerts for Frontline Engagement and Response), which was launched in September, aims to identify children at risk by connecting the dots between information about families with child protection concerns held by law enforcement and other agencies. 

One change Goh has observed since Megan’s case is in how the child protection sector rallied together to share their experiences and challenges.