SINGAPORE: From
April, lower and middle income families will enjoy higher government
subsidies in child and infant care services, under a new subsidy
framework.
The framework complements other measures to defray the
costs of child-raising under the Marriage and Parenthood Package
announced on Monday.
All parents will continue to receive a basic
subsidy at the current rate of S$300 a month for child care and infant
care programmes.
Families with a gross monthly income of S$7,500 and below will receive an additional subsidy.
Eligible
families using full-day programmes will see an increase in their
current child care subsidies of at least S$100 and infant care subsidies
of at least S$200, with lower income families receiving more.
For
example, a lower income household with a monthly income of S$2,500 and
below will get an extra S$440 for a basic full-day childcare programme.
This will bring its total subsidy to S$740.
The additional
subsidy will replace the Centre-Based Financial Assistance Scheme for
Child Care (CFAC) which provides child care related financial assistance
for families earning S$3,500 and below.
Up to two-thirds of households will benefit.
Acting
Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing announced the
new framework after a visit to YWCA Child Development Centre on
Wednesday.
He said it puts Singapore comfortably in the top half
of OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)
countries, in terms of affordability of pre-school services.
Mr
Chan said the subsidies will cover a large part of costs, as the median
cost of a full-day childcare programme in an HDB estate is about S$615.
The
new subsidy framework will increase the government's investment in
child and infant care by S$105 million and bring the total budget for
government spending in this area to about S$360 million for financial
year 2013.
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