Kindergarten Tour

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31450, 17 August 1967, Page 2

Kindergarten Tour

Parent participation in pre-school education in New Zealand has impressed two Colombo Plan students from Singapore, who have just spent .30 weeks studying kindergartens and play centres in Christchurch and Auckland.

They are Mrs Chiang Chu Ping and Miss Pang Son Wan, who would like to introduce moth®" helpers to their kindergartens when they return home.

Government-sponsored preschool centres in Singapore have to be strictly organised to make use of the limited time and space available They were introduced in 1964, and are incorporated in the community centre programme. Kindergartens are open in the morning in 139 of the community centres in Singapore. In the afternoon, the

same buildings are used for recreation centres, where business people can watch television, read the newspapers or join the sports programmes.

Teachers have to cater for two and often three sessions of 30 children each day. Mrs Chiang and Miss Pang agreed that mother helpers would be of assistance to the teachers. Pre-school centres are for five-year-olds and six-year-olds before formal schooling begins at seven, but both visitors find the idea of including three-year-olds and four-year-olds an attractive one.

Parent participation would raise a problem not encountered in this country—language. Mrs Chiang speaks nine Chinese dialects and Miss Pang speaks five, and all of these are necessary to cope with the cross-section of children in their centres. “But there are still educated parents who could help us,” they said. Equipment in pre-school centres did not differ from country to country, but often shops in Singapore did not stock it and the teachers had to make their own, said Miss Pang. While in New Zealand the two teachers have attended parents’ courses and they have some ideas to put to parents in Singapore. Kindergartens

are not open on Saturdays, but the teachers spend Saturdays visiting the children’s parents, and they now see this as an opportunity to interest mothers.

Although their 30-week period in New Zealand has come to an end, both visitors are anxious to spend a further term of 30 weeks in Wellington and Dunedin. They have found differences in the systems in Auckland and Christchurch and, they feel, their observations in other centres would provide more fruitful ideas to improve their pre-school centres in Singapore. The picture shows Mrs

Chiang Chu Ping (left) and Miss Pang Son Wan in Christchurch yesterday.