As we revisit the history of the PAP Community Foundation (PCF), it is apt to start with the reopening of SparkleTots in Joo Chiat in April. The kindergarten at Lorong K Telok Kurau Joo Chiat has been rebuilt, bringing more joy and laughter to the neighbourhood’s littlest residents. With kindergarten bursaries to help lower-income Marine Parade families, it has never been a better time to be a kid in Marine Parade.
“I think there is no other way of breaking the cycle of the less-privileged, the lower-income, and those that don’t have the opportunity, than through education,” said Mr Edwin Tong, MP for Marine Parade GRC, and Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, at the launch of the new kindergarten on 29 April.
PCF SparkleTots @ Joo Chiat serves an integral role in the community. Existing kindergartens in the largely private property constituency are mainly privately run, with fees ranging from between $800 and $3,000 before subsidies. PCF Sparkletots @ Joo Chiat, however, sets its monthly fees for citizens at between $163.50 for kindergarten, to $741.20 for childcare. And these fees are also before subsidies!
This is in line with the PAP Government’s focus on lower childcare costs for parents. As PM Wong said in his recent NDR speech, the government’s aim is for expenses at full-day childcare to be as affordable as that in primary school, with the less well-off enjoying subsidies that can bring their expenses for childcare down to as low as $3 a month.
This care for families with little ones is emblematic of the PCF. It goes hand-in-hand with the PCF providing easy-to-access eldercare services and senior-focused social fitness activities like yoga and brisk walking.
These on-the-ground activities demonstrate the mission of the PCF: enhancing the well-being of communities through providing quality and affordable early childhood education, as well as through welfare and community services.
As PCF CEO Victor Bay said in an interview with Petir, “PCF, through its various assistance schemes like Headstart Fund and its Senior Care Assistance Scheme, ensures that no child or senior will be deprived of its services because of affordability.”
Educating our children, when many had gone without
Our Party has made educating our children a priority from the start. We did not have many resources during those pre-Independence times. This was an era where few Singaporeans went to school, and even fewer recieved early childhood education.
Regardless, we made the best use of the facilities we had — open-air classrooms, or in kampung houses, where local activists taught village toddlers English, Mother Tongue and Mathematics in order to prepare them for primary school.
Source: PCF
As the years went on, we opened more, better-equipped kindergartens. In particular, we took pride in bringing them to Housing Board estates, such as MacPherson in November 1965. It meant giving children from poorer families a better start in life.
We held these kindergarten classes in our branch premises, often doubling up in the spaces we had been allocated. It was usual for kids to learn and play on our branch premises in the mornings and afternoons. Afterwards, moms and dads would come in for evening classes on sewing and language.
These PAP kindergartens were oases of calm in a turbulent time.
Kindergartens run by opposition parties, however, were another story. Communist sympathisers had no qualms about using their kindergarten classrooms for indoctrination. Basic mathematics was taught using images of Chairman Mao Tse Tung. These opposition kindergartens also used violent images, urging death to American soldiers in their lessons for young children.
Source: Newspaper.sg
In fact, our PAP kindergartens became targets for political violence during those very difficult post-independence years. In December 1967, angered by the jailing of their communist leaders, Barisan Socialis (BS) supporters marched to the MacPherson kindergarten mentioned above. With a kindergarten class in progress, the BS supporters threw black oil and rotten eggs at the kindergarten — then fled.
Source: NewspaperSG
Establishing the PAP Community Foundation
In spite of this political violence, our Party solidly carried on. We kept opening kindergartens.
“There is a great demand for kindergartens among our population and those Party Branches that have not started such classes should try to do so,” said DPM Goh when opening our Party’s new Bukit Batok premises in 1975. DPM Goh also noted how “consumer clubs” at branches could help supply people with daily necessities like rice, sugar and tinned milk.
A new wave of construction, recruitment and planning followed. Initiatives like kindergarten “scholarships” — fees, books and uniforms all paid for — to disadvantaged children in Whampoa, as well as free milk for our students in Kolam Ayer characterised the 1970s.
In March 1986, we centralised them all under a dedicated charitable arm — the PCF — to uplift more people in our young and rapidly-growing nation.
We were careful to set the PCF up as our non-political entity. Our Party’s mission is to bring the benefits of progress to all Singaporeans, regardless of creed. The non-political PCF allows us do this better.
As the Straits Times observed, this separation makes it easier to approach people who care about welfare needs. A non-political PCF is able to secure funding and support based on its own merits as a community service provider. Moreover, this distance from politics ensures that the PCF can concentrate on providing its social services and developing communities.
Most significantly, the PCF centralises educational and social activities across all our branches islandwide. This economy of scale lets us make a bigger difference for more Singaporean kids, parents and seniors.
Singaporeans welcomed our kindergartens and social support. By 1987, PAP kindergartens were serving over 46,000 pre-schoolers, or about two-thirds of all kindergarten children. Fees were low, making pre-school education available to practically every Singaporean family.
Source: NewspaperSG
Bringing progress and marching with pride
Today, much of the PCF’s charitable efforts occur through district and ward events. During the pandemic in October 2022, its Teck Ghee branch hosted a Fundraising Dinner. This event collected about $2 million to help ward residents with education, health services and daily necessities in the community. The Foundation raised $420,000 for needy NorthWest District residents that same year.
As for the “consumer clubs” which DPM Goh envisioned in each branch? As Singaporeans got richer, and as the impoverished 60s gave way to the high economic growth of the 70s, 80s and beyond, these clubs transformed.
PAP branches all over Singapore now have stocks of free food and household essentials for needy residents who come to Meet-The-People Sessions (MPS). This immediate assistance helps tide these residents through life’s challenges. We know that true progress happens only when no one is left behind.
Meanwhile, our PCF teachers and volunteers faithfully contribute to their communities and the public good. They marched proudly at this National Day Parade, holding their heads up high, and in lockstep with each other. And now, after their well-deserved moment in the spotlight, they are back in the neighbourhood, making life for all ages and creed of Singaporeans better every day — this is the PCF way.
Source: Salmah bin Sidek
