Queueing for kindergarten at age one

And children of Pink IC holders and personnel with NS liability should queue at the back? While Familee members and FTrash kids can jump queue? Things have deteriorated to such a stage and still want to hold on to your coolie rice bowl and dun want to emigrate?

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Queueing for kindergarten at age one
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Popular pre-schools see long waiting lists, some with newborns registered </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Judith Tan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10> </TD><TD vAlign=bottom>
St James' Church Kindergarten has a three-year waitlist of about 1,000 children. Its current enrolment is 840. -- ST PHOTO: LIM SIN THAI
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>




<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->NEVER mind that Emily has celebrated only one birthday so far. Her parents are already thinking way ahead. They have put her on the waiting list to enrol at Nanyang Kindergarten.
The hope is that by the time Emily turns three, she should be able to get a place in the popular pre-school at Coronation Road in Bukit Timah.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css> #related .quote {background-color:#E7F7FF; padding:8px;margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;} #related .quote .headline {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px;font-weight:bold; border-bottom:3px double #007BFF; color:#036; text-transform:uppercase; padding-bottom:5px;} #related .quote .text {font-size:11px;color:#036;padding:5px 0px;} </STYLE>PCF aims to keep fees affordable
THE PAP Community Foundation (PCF), which runs just over half the preschools here, is on a mission to keep kindergarten education available and affordable to all.

A typical PCF kindergarten charges around $100 a month for a half-day programme on five mornings.


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Even then, she still has to compete with about 700 other children already on the growing waiting list for 660 places that year. But her parents figure it is worth taking a chance to get her into the Mandarin-rich kindergarten.
Emily's mother, Mrs Lawrence Teo, 38, an administrative executive, said: 'Both her father and I speak English at home. Her grandparents from both sides are Peranakan. Coming from an English- speaking home, I want her to have an opportunity to learn Mandarin.'
A check with six private kindergartens and nurseries, which have 26 centres in all, reveals that hundreds of one- and two-year-olds have already been 'booked' for that headstart in education.
Despite the frenzy, no child in Singapore needs to go begging for kindergarten slots, with 490 pre-schools available.
But places in popular kindergartens are limited, and parents are increasingly desperate to get their kids in.
Faced with a two-year waitlist, Nanyang Kindergarten is building an extension on its old school grounds along King's Road so as to add 120 more places.
St James' Church kindergarten at Harding Road has a three-year waiting list of 1,000 children. Its current total enrolment is 840.
Said principal Jacqueline Chung: 'It is first-come-first-served. We accept registration as long as there is a birth certificate. We even have newborns registering with us.'
Likewise, Barker Road Methodist Church kindergarten gets calls from parents still in the maternity ward hoping to enrol their newborns, said principal Leong Sau Ling. The kindergarten does not enrol children until they reach school age. Its 420 places a year fill up quickly.
Mrs Ng Gim Choo, who manages the EtonHouse Group of nine pre-schools, has some 300 children waiting to get in when the time is right. Some pregnant mothers even try - unsuccessfully - to enrol their unborn children.
Parents pay high prices to place their children in these popular kindergartens.
Fees range from $630 to $900 for a 10-week term at St James' Church kindergarten. At Nanyang, it is $780 to $840. At Barker Road, nursery and kindergarten cost $898.80 for 10 weeks and pre-nursery, $1,187.70. EtonHouse charges between $1,200 and $1,500 a month.
Parents who can afford it are glad to pony up the money for what they think is a better pre-school education. Some are also hoping for a shot - mistakenly, it seems - at getting into primary schools affiliated with some kindergartens. But neither Barker Road kindergarten nor Nanyang kindergarten says getting a place there means an easier path to their primary schools.
Not all pre-schools keep parents waiting indefinitely. Founder and director of Pat's Schoolhouse, Ms Patricia Koh, said her schools will place a child on the waitlist only if a place is due to come up in a few months. It has a total enrolment of about 1,300 students at its 11 centres.
'We try and help parents secure a place. Time is of the essence for children. Waiting around would not be fair to them,' she said. [email protected]

At Nanyang, it is $780 to $840. At Barker Road, nursery and kindergarten cost $898.80 for 10 weeks and pre-nursery, $1,187.70. EtonHouse charges between $1,200 and $1,500 a month.

Click to expand...

The cleaner makes only $900. How to afford these charges? Where do their kids go to?

this one for all the ang mos and expat lah , they got transport allowance, housing allowance, child tution allowance. how much also dont care.

The rat race start at age one ?

omega said:

The rat race start at age one ?

Click to expand...

They should start queueing even before the child is conceived.
Perhaps they can consider queueing overnight and conceive the child while in the queue.

jw5 said:

They should start queueing even before the child is conceived.
Perhaps they can consider queueing overnight and conceive the child while in the queue.

Click to expand...

It is pointless to send a 1 year old to kindergarten, how much headstart can that child get?

Don't forget that there is a limit on how much information (software) that can be downloaded into the hardware (human brain). The genes (DNA) of the parents already determine the harddisk capacity, type of motherboard configuration and the processing speed of the child's brain.

Furthermore, whatever software (learning of facts) force fed into the child at an early age could become outdated and in need of frequent upgrades over and over again.

In the information age, leap frogging by late developers nullifies all the advantages of the early KIASU head-starters.

The only difference is those late starters get to enjoy their precious childhood years and leapfrog ahead with the latest facts while the early starters have NO childhood and worse, may have to discard their earlier learning which has become obsolete and relearn the updated facts at the same time as the late starters.

In the end, does all that KIASUISM headstart in education really make life any rosier for S'poreans as compared to the less stressful educational systems of other 1st world countries?

S'poreans are slogging till the day they die to just make ends meet while the senior citizens of other 1st world countries are enjoying their pensions in their retirement.

jake said:

The cleaner makes only $900. How to afford these charges? Where do their kids go to?

Click to expand...

For sure, they will need to serve ant ass even though they hardly benefit under the Leegime's rule.

If you don't give birth, you'll be free from such worry.

kiwibird
Only the well off and the intelligent will be able to have a good life in SG.
Those who are stupid and short of money will always be struggling and led by the nose.

omega said:

The rat race start at age one ?

Click to expand...

ahem....the rat race began the moment we entered the dark tunnel and released millions of rat cells which had to beat each other to latch onto a waiting rat cell, only to emerge a bigger rat.

This is one system we cant beat.