Commentary: Keep preschools open for an extra half-hour? It will mean more than 30 minutes to educators like me
Keeping childcare centres open longer to help working parents would come at a cost to the people running them, says preschool educator Samantha Pua.
by Samantha Pua · CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
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SINGAPORE: It is 7pm. The last child has finally been picked up, and the heavy front door of the preschool clicks shut. For many, this sound signals the transition to rest and family time.
So when Workers’ Party Member of Parliament Mr Gerald Giam suggested extending childcare operating hours to 7.30pm in at least one centre per HDB estate to help working parents, it may appear modest and practical. On paper, it is just 30 minutes. In reality, that half-hour carries a disproportionate mental cost for preschool educators.
Whatever the closing time, classrooms still need to be reset, toddlers’ messes to be cleaned, briefings to be completed.
When I finally leave and begin my commute home, I am mentally drafting the next day’s lesson plan, replaying a child’s behavioural incident and deciding how to update the parents. I am calculating how to squeeze time out of tomorrow for administrative tasks I could not touch today.
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Some evenings, I sit at the dinner table with my family and realise I am barely present. My child is telling me about her day, but part of my mind is on another child.
In early childhood education, our hours with children are “contact time”. When we are responsible for a room full of children, our attention cannot be anywhere else – except on their safety, emotional regulation, developmental milestones and classroom dynamics.
Some centres set aside non-contact time, but it is generally limited – typically an hour a week. In practice, this is inconsistently applied and can only be utilised when staffing levels permit, thus often forfeited. As a result, tasks such as documentation, portfolio updates, lesson planning, compliance requirements and parent communication are often pushed to the margins of the day.
Extending official hours does not change this load. It just delays it.
A SECTOR ALREADY STRETCHED THIN
The early childhood sector is already navigating serious manpower strain. The number of centres offering care after 7pm has halved since 2021, according to the Ministry of Social and Family Development – not because educators lack empathy for working parents, but because staffing extended hours is increasingly unsustainable.
The industry often feels like a leaky bucket. While workforce numbers have grown to over 25,000 in 2025, retention remains a persistent challenge. A “stable” attrition of 10 to 15 per cent still means losing up to 3,750 educators every year.
Many passionate graduates enter the profession with a genuine love for children, only for it to get tested by the reality of the job. In my career, I’ve seen teachers leave after barely a year, often citing high administrative demands and emotional burnout as key reasons for their departure.
When one teacher resigns, the ones who remain absorb the shock for weeks and months until a suitable replacement can be recruited – and the cycle continues.
While the idea of having ancillary staff cover extended hours may seem feasible on paper, preschools would likely still require trained or senior staff to be present, as they are equipped to handle specific situations and care needs.
In addition, if teachers are not around to engage parents at dismissal, they may still need to follow up after hours which limits the effectiveness of this arrangement.
BLURRED BOUNDARIES
This burden of digital connectivity is well-known. Parent-teacher communication apps strengthen partnerships by allowing real-time updates, photos of classroom moments and timely responses to concerns.
But they also blur boundaries. A quick clarification about tomorrow’s attire becomes a follow-up query on their child’s progress or an incident involving other children that requires careful, sensitive communication to address parents’ concerns fully.
Even when not explicitly required, the pressure to respond promptly lingers. Notifications follow us into living rooms and bedrooms.
The Ministry of Education has guidelines advising parents not to contact primary and secondary school teachers after working hours except for urgent matters. This reflects an institutional recognition that teachers require protected personal time to remain effective.
No equivalent sector-wide norm exists for preschool educators, even though our communication with parents is often more frequent and immediate. In the absence of clear boundaries, expectations expand quietly. Individual centres – and sometimes individual teachers – are left to negotiate them alone.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND OUR FAMILIES
When we speak about building a “pro-family” society in Singapore, we must ask: Whose family?
If educators routinely sacrifice their evenings, absorb administrative spillover and remain digitally tethered long after closing time, we are solving one problem by creating another.
The heart of early childhood education is relational. It is found in kneeling beside a child who is learning to regulate big emotions, in noticing subtle developmental shifts, in building trust with families. A preschool educator who is emotionally depleted cannot sustainably nurture young children.
So, an additional half-hour may offer assistance to some working parents, or convenience to others. But this would come at a real cost – paid by preschool educators and their families.
The gap that extended preschool hours are meant to fill could also be bridged by employers – such as through flexible work arrangements or partnerships with nearby childcare centres. Ultimately, it is about balancing employees’ childcare needs with educators’ workloads.
If Singapore truly hopes to encourage more couples to start families, then safeguarding the well-being of those who care for the youngest among us is not optional. We cannot build a family-friendly society on the exhaustion of the people making it possible.
Samantha Pua is a preschool educator with 30 years of experience in Singapore and holds a Master in Early Childhood Education.
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