1. The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) appointed 29 ECDA Fellows and 87 Pedagogists And Specialists in TEaching and Learning (PASTELs) at the ECDA Fellows Appointment Ceremony and Early Childhood Learning Communities (ECLC) Welcome Event on 23 April 2024. Guest-of-Honour for the event, Minister of State for Social and Family Development Sun Xueling, also revealed the refreshed ‘Shape Our Tomorrow’ campaign to be launched later in 2024, focusing on empowering educators, parents and children to do what they do best to support the growth and development of our young children.
Celebrating and uplifting the quality of sectoral and pedagogical leadership
2. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the ECDA Fellows programme. One of ECDA’s key initiatives is to recognise and collaborate with exemplary Early Childhood (EC) leaders to uplift the quality of EC leadership and drive sector improvements. Over the past nine years, the ECDA Fellows have spearheaded 19 Inquiry-Based Action Plan (IBAP) Projects, while empowering over 3,000 EC leaders with more than 200 learning workshops and sharing sessions.
3. Since the launch of ECLC in 2021, the inaugural batch of 56 PASTELs have engaged 260 educators through 540 hours of peer sharing of experience and expertise in Communities of Practice (CoPs) across four domain areas.
4. To further uplift the professionalism and confidence of educators in supporting children’s diverse needs and partnering parents, the ECDA Fellows and ECLC programmes will be expanded in scope in 2024.
- The ECDA Fellows programme welcomes two new leaders from the Early Intervention (EI) and Learning Support (LS) Tracks. Their addition will widen the ECDA Fellows’ range of expertise.
- Besides taking on sector-level roles for professional, curriculum and leadership development, ECDA Fellows will now mentor educators on the ECDA Professional Development Programme for Leaders.
- The ECLC programme will scale up from four existing domain areas to six, with the addition of Inclusive Practice and Mother Tongue Languages.
5. Newly-minted ECDA Fellow, Ms Janice Leong, Deputy Director, Early Intervention Services at Rainbow Centre, said, “Having EI/LS professionals on board the ECDA Fellows programme affirms my belief that co-creation between the EC and EI sectors can address current challenges such as manpower attraction and retention, and increasing EC professionals’ competence and confidence in implementing inclusive practices in the classroom to enable progress towards our shared vision of giving every child a good start.”
6. Reappointed ECDA Fellow, Ms Sylvia Yeo, Senior Cluster Quality Manager at NTUC My First Skool Limited, welcomed the move for ECDA Fellows to mentor EC leaders. “ECDA Fellows have a wealth of experience and knowledge to address the specific needs of EC leaders, given their deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced on the ground in daily operations.”
7. Ms A Susila, lead preschool educator from Presbyterian Preschool Services, has 34 years of EC experience, including experience working with children of different learning needs. As a PASTEL in the new domain area of Inclusive Practice, Susila said, “Educators learn better when they have the chance to discuss theories with one another and exchange best practices. I hope to contribute to my learning community by sharing my experiences as an interventionist Development Support / Learning Support educator.”
Refreshed ‘Shape Our Tomorrow’ campaign
8. To foster positive parent-preschool partnership and attract more quality educators to the sector, ECDA will launch a three-year campaign ‘Empower Today, Shape Our Tomorrow’ later in 2024. This builds upon the ‘Shape Our Tomorrow’ campaign launched in 2018 to enhance the public’s understanding and recognition of the EC profession. The refreshed campaign aims to further engage parents, EC leaders, current and potential educators and foster conversations on the importance of holistic development for children, role of parents and educators for children’s development and strengthening of parent-preschool relationships to shape our children’s tomorrow.
Additional information can be found in the Annexes:
Annex A – ECDA Fellows (EF) Programme