Speech by Minister of State Goh Pei Ming at the MSF Committee of Supply 2026

Introduction 

1. Mr Chairman, MSF is committed to building a nation that supports Singaporeans in raising strong families and giving every child a good start. 

2. Today, I will elaborate on three strategies to achieve this: 

   a. Starting Strong – Building firm foundations within the home; 

   b. Starting Early – Ensuring access to affordable and quality early childhood education; and  

   c. Starting Together – Working as a community to support our families. 

3. Strong, Early, Together, and if we take the first letter of each, they spell out SET, reflecting our shared commitment to ensuring that families are set to thrive in Singapore.   

 I. Starting Strong: Building firm foundations within the home 

4. I will begin by sharing how we are supporting our families to start strong. 

5. For many of us, families are our safe harbour and where we turn to in our happiest and also our most challenging moments.  

   a. An MSF survey in 2023 showed that most Singaporeans have a closely-knit family and believe in its importance.  

6. We will continue to support families to build strong foundations within the home. Mr Gabriel Lam and Mr Melvin Yong asked about support available for the different family types, while Ms Eileen Chong asked about strengthening support for parents and caregivers. 

7. MSF is committed in our efforts to strengthen all families. 

   a. Our children deserve to be valued and given equal opportunities to thrive. Benefits that support their growth and development, such as subsidies for education, healthcare, and the Child Development Account, are given to all Citizen children, regardless of their parents’ marital status.  

   b. To help all families stay resilient, we offer holistic support at every stage of life. These programmes range from financial assistance to family counselling to parenting workshops. For more vulnerable households, by adopting a holistic case management approach, our Family Service Centres help them manage multiple stressors and break out of intergenerational patterns. Minister Masagos has also shared that we will double our family counselling capacity under the Strengthening Families Programme by 2030. 

8. To provide better support for caregivers: 

   a. We have significantly enhanced leave provisions for parents of newborns, increased mandatory paternity leave introduced a new Shared Parental Leave scheme, and in total, parents have up to 30 weeks of paid parental leave from April this year onwards. 

   b. The Ministry of Manpower has also introduced the Tripartite Guidelines on flexible work arrangements to help caregivers. 

9. MSF’s latest survey findings show that more than 85% of Singaporean families reported moderate to high family resilience scores, reflecting good ability to bounce back from life’s challenges. Nonetheless, the data also shows that our divorced, widowed and separated respondents reported a lower family resilience score compared to married respondents. MSF will continue to track the resilience of families, and study whether to provide targeted support for single parent households. 

10. We also recognise that some children may not have access to stable homes with their biological parents and may require adoption or fostering. Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Neo Kok Beng have asked about these arrangements.  

    a. Today, there are multiple layers of checks in our adoption processes to detect child trafficking. Challenges remain in transnational arrangements. Singapore has adopted regional frameworks to complement our domestic efforts to protect children. We undertake regular reviews to ensure that our processes, our laws, and our international efforts are effective in combating unethical adoption practices and child trafficking. 

    b. In fostering arrangements, we facilitate regular contact or access between children and their biological parents to maintain links, wherever safe and appropriate. We have also seen examples, cases where foster parents proactively help children reunite with their biological parents. MSF remains open to considering ways to facilitate this, including co-parenting, recognising also that every case is unique. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all foster parents, including Mr Neo, for their efforts in providing positive family environments. 

11. Finally, we are helping families plan for their later years.  

    a. Yesterday, I was very glad to share that we will make it free of charge for citizens to file Form 1 of the Lasting Power of Attorney. Members of this House have raised this topic, including Mr Yip Hon Weng, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Kenneth Tiong. We encourage all Singaporeans to make their LPA while they are still healthy and to do so as soon as possible. 

    b. We acknowledge Members’ feedback about the challenges faced in scenarios where individuals require professional donees or deputies. We have also heard similar feedback in our public consultations and with the PDDs. We will consider them in our upcoming review of the Mental Capacity Act and the PDD scheme. 

Supporting Families to Bond Well 

12. Now, building a strong family environment requires creating healthy habits and quality time together - a challenge when screens increasingly dominate family life.  

13. Mr Cai Yin Zhou and Ms Rachel Ong raised valid concerns about prolonged screen usage and exposure to AI.

    a. Parents are our first and most important line of defence. For practical support, I refer parents to IMDA’s Digital for Life portal and MSF’s Families for Life Parenting website. They offer guiding materials on managing children’s screen time and helping them navigate the online world safely and to use AI responsibly. 

14. By reducing screen times, we hope parents can create opportunities to bond and form meaningful connections with their children.  

    a. Every year, we dedicate the month of June to celebrating families through the month-long National Family Festival, or NFF. Last year, more than 850,000 participated in activities like family carnivals, games, and experiential learning activities. With greater community and corporate support, we hope to welcome one million participants to participate in NFF 2026 this year, and to create more memories as a family. 

    b. Through our partnerships, MSF has been bringing more quality and affordable family activities directly to local communities. These include kite-making, reading programmes, community lo-hei since Chinese New Year just passed, as well as discounts from commercial partners for family outings. Families can find upcoming events, good discounts, on the Families for Life website.   

II. Starting Early: Access to affordable and quality early childhood education 

15. Next let me touch on Starting Early, I will share how we will further enhance our early childhood education.  

Accessibility and affordability 

16. Research has shown that the early years are crucial to a child’s development, where preschool attendance from the age of three leads to positive outcomes.  

17. To ensure accessibility to preschools, we have increased the number of full-day preschool places from around 135,000 to now more than 220,000 in the past decade. 

    a. We now have enough full-day preschool places nationally for every resident child aged three and above. We also achieved our commitment of ensuring that 80% of preschoolers can have a place in a Government-supported preschool.  

    b. To serve the newer housing estates with more families with young children, we are on track to adding more than 40,000 full-day places in Anchor Operator preschools by 2029.  

18. Our early childhood services will continue to remain affordable. 

    a. Since the start of the year, full-day childcare fees have been further reduced to a maximum of $610 at Anchor Operator preschools and $650 at Partner Operator preschools, a reduction of 15% since 2020. This will make out-of-pocket expenses for full-day childcare at an Anchor Operator preschool comparable to primary school and after-school care fees combined. With the revised Additional Subsidy income thresholds announced by PM in his budget speech, many families can expect to pay even lower fees.  

    b. Let me elaborate. From January 2027, we will raise the gross monthly household income ceiling for the Additional Subsidy for childcare and Kindergarten Fee Assistance Scheme, or KiFAS, to $15,000. We will also increase income thresholds for all subsidy tiers to reflect changes in household incomes. This will further improve affordability of preschools for more than 60,000 lower- and middle-income families with young children.  

    c. Let me cite an example. A median income household earning $12,500, with two children in Anchor Operator childcare, will see their total out-of-pocket fees for both children reduce by 35% from $730 in 2026 to $470 in 2027.  

19.  Mr Kenneth Tiong suggested portable preschool subsidies and additional salary support for non-government supported operators.  

    a. Now, portable subsidies have been raised in Parliament before. We have studied this, highlighted that this approach alone may lead to unintended consequences, such as fee increases without improvements in accessibility or quality, or preschools becoming overly commercial. We have seen this initiative implemented in other countries, only to be withdrawn a few years later.

    b. Instead, of one single approach, we take a more holistic, multi-pronged approach. We provide funding to rigorously selected operators to cap fees and maintain quality. We also provide basic and means-tested additional subsidies to parents to ensure affordability, with lower-income families paying less. Child Development Accounts help parents further offset post-subsidy fees at preschools of their choice.  

    c. And our schemes have worked well with demonstrated success in our accessibility and affordability outcomes.  

Quality 

20. In the next bound, MSF will place greater emphasis on the quality of preschools.   

    a. Today, I will share our vision for “Quality Preschools” - where children play, learn and grow alongside their peers, and develop holistically with strong foundations for life. 

    b. To achieve this vision, we will journey with the sector to enhance preschool capabilities, improve programme and professional quality, foster strong parent-preschool partnerships, and strengthen research and innovation.  

21. First, for our children, we will cultivate a preschool environment where they can play, learn and grow at a pace suitable for them.  

    a. We will cater to children of different needs and backgrounds by encouraging play and offering different ways for them to learn and to explore. 

    i. In my maiden parliamentary speech, I highlighted the crucial role of play in children’s learning and development. Play is a child's natural language. Play teaches children to share, to solve problems, to adapt to new situations, and to manage emotions. Our educators today already provide play experiences – we introduced play-based pedagogies in our Early Years curriculum more than a decade ago. In the next bound, we will take it further, and share across the sector various best practices they have observed from the operators and intensify the application of play in everyday lessons to make learning more responsive to each child's needs and interests, and to help children enjoy both learning and their childhood.

    ii. Next, we recognise that every child has their own strengths and learning needs. International research demonstrates that when educators design lessons that offer children different ways to learn, it improves teaching quality and leads to better outcomes for our children. We are strengthening efforts to equip educators to support every child’s development to help them reach their full potential.  

22. For our Parents, we will enable stronger partnerships with their child’s educators.  

    a. Parents play a crucial role in bridging our children’s development across preschool and home.  

    b. From my preschool visits, the principals shared that parents want to be involved in shaping their children’s learning and development. However, they are unsure how to partner educators. So, we will work with preschools to strengthen educator-parent partnerships through clearer role definitions and shared best practices.    

23. Educators are at the heart of preschool education, and critical for our children’s holistic development. We care for their well-being and want to ensure that more support is given to our educators as mentioned by Mr Melvin Yong. 

    a. Attracting and retaining quality educators remains a priority for us. We will grow our early education workforce by another 3500 educators by 2030 to meet sector needs. 

    b. We will better equip educators through pre-service training and in-service continuous development to adapt to our evolving early childhood landscapes, as they apply more play-based learning and support different learning needs. 

24. We also acknowledge the challenges preschool educators face – given the long hours they spend caring for our children, there is little time to engage in other tasks such as lesson planning or relevant upskilling. Preschools also do not have school holidays unlike primary or secondary schools. 

    a. We have been enhancing educators’ career proposition over the years and remain committed to doing more to ensure they are well-supported.

    b. Together with operators and educators, we are currently reviewing educators’ working conditions and workload, such as better enabling non-contact time. 

    c. We will also embark on a sector-wide job redesign project to review the job scopes, the work processes and support structures in preschools, to improve work experiences.  

25. For our Operators, we will provide more support to strengthen their daily operations, and to enhance their programme quality.

    a. Technology is a key enabler. As shared by Minister Masagos yesterday, we will refresh the Industry Digital Plan, or IDP 2.0, jointly with IMDA to enhance support for all preschools' digital transformation efforts, including non-government-supported preschools. Through new innovation seed funding and establishing baseline technology requirements, we will support preschools to adopt digital capabilities. We want to streamline routine tasks while facilitating better communications with parents, and fostering stronger parent-preschool partnerships.

    b. We will also want to encourage more operators to seek accreditation under the revised Singapore Preschool Accreditation Framework, or SPARK 2.0, rolled out last year. As preschools attain a higher banding that reflects better service provision, parents can be assured of better quality. They can look forward to these preschools, which offer an even more enriching environment, to cater to their children’s needs and to allow them to flourish.   

26. Finally, undergirding our next bound of quality improvements will be a strong focus on research and innovation.  

    a. ECDA will lead efforts and collaborate with research partners to stay updated on emerging research, and assess and encourage adoption of effective teaching and learning practices to raise the overall profile of our early childhood landscape.   

27. Quality improvement is a continuous journey. Our focus this year will be to engage and closely work with preschool operators, educators, and parents to further develop our plans, as we strive to deliver this vision of Quality Preschools over the next five years. MSF and ECDA will share more details when we are ready.  

III. Starting Together: Expanding community partnerships to support our families and our children 

28. I have spoken about the importance of starting strong and starting early. This brings me to my final point on ensuring that our families are SET for life – starting together.  

29. Many parents tell me that raising children is a full-time job, and since many parents have to continue to work, we are often stretched thin. This is where the broader community plays a crucial role in supporting our children's development and make raising children a joyful experience.  

30. Through the strong partnerships that MSF has built with our community partners to run our Families for Life @ Community initiative, we were able to organise more than 670 family-centric across across all 24 towns in Singapore last year. These events were supported by over 780 volunteers and benefitted more than half a million participants. My deepest appreciation goes out to all our volunteers who made these events possible. Thank you.  

31. These events provide opportunities for local communities to come together to foster friendship, to buildsupport, while teaching children what books cannot - to care for those people and everyone around us. 

    a. Take 11-year-old Capella, who started volunteering with Families for Life because she wanted to accompany her mother. What began as family time has become something deeper - Capella has grown more confident, empathetic, and discovered her own passion for helping others. Their shared service not only supported other families; it deepened their own bond. This is the ripple effect we see when families volunteer together - creating meaningful quality time while making a difference in our community. 

Assurance for Families with Persons with Disabilities 

32. Now, we all have a role in supporting families in Singapore. Now let me talk about our families with persons with disabilities.

    a. I thank Ms Denise Phua and Prof Kenneth Poon for acknowledging the inter-agency Taskforce, and your suggestions that the taskforce can consider, including reviewing the affordability of Day Activity Centres and residential homes, reviewing employment opportunities, and supporting persons with disabilities and their families with long-term planning. As SPS Eric has shared, we will carefully consider these suggestions, along with recommendations for supporting persons with disabilities that many other members have raised through the past week. I am grateful to be leading the Taskforce which will complement our larger Enabling Masterplan 2030 and go beyond its recommendations to provide greater opportunities and assurances of dignity and stability for them. 

    b. The Taskforce has started its work, by looking at the life cycle of persons with disabilities of different needs, and identifying the pain points and gaps they encounter in the current system. 

    i. We will relook how they transition from education to employment. We will grow employment opportunities that tap on their strengths.  

    ii. We will expand capacities of our Day Acitivity Centres and Sheltered Workshops to provide stable and secure care environments for more clients and to shorten waiting times, thereby reducing unnecessarily stressful transitions for persons with disabilities and their families. 

    iii. We will review community pathways and healthcare support for them to stay engaged in the community for longer. 

    iv. We will see how to better support our caregivers, by designing the system with them and their person with disabilities as a dyad. 

    v. And we will review and keep services affordable for all. 

    c. The Taskforce's report will be released later this year.  

33. The Government stands ready to invest more to support persons with disabilities and their families. But an inclusive society also means reshaping our systems and attitudes to embrace all abilities, and empowering Persons with Disabilities to pursue their aspirations, to achieve their potential, and participate as integral members of society.