Singapore is very particular with teaching requirements before one becomes an eligible teacher or an educarer. A qualified teacher or an educarer should meet all professional and academic qualifications and language proficiency requirement. What does it mean?

For Singaporeans and PRs, qualified teachers should have:

• Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education (professional qualification)
• 5 ‘O’ level credits in 5 different subjects (academic qualification)
• B4 in GCE ‘O’ Level English Language 1 (language proficiency)

When you meet the above requirements, you will be considered as L2 teacher. L2 teacher can teach all levels in preschool such as Kindergarten, Nursery, Pre-Nursery and Playgroup (18 months – 6 year old children).

Those who have Certificate in ECCE, 3 ‘O’ level credits in 3 different subjects and C6 in GCE ‘O’ Level English Language 1 will be considered as L1 teacher. L1 teacher can only teach Nursery, Pre-Nursery and Playgroup (18 months – 4 years old). For more information, click here.

For foreigner English teachers like those preschool teachers from the Philippines, Malaysia and other country, they should also meet the teacher certification requirements. This means that they need to have Diploma in ECCE and should get an IELTS band score of 6.5 or better in order to be categorized as L2 teacher. Those who were assessed at certificate level will be labeled as L1 teacher, and can only teach early years (up to 4 years old). To know more details on teacher certification with foreign Early Childhood qualifications, click here.

If the foreign English Teacher has degree in his/her home country, it will be assessed whether it covers the following topics:

• Principles and  Practices  in  Early Childhood  Care  and  Education
• Child  Development and  Learning
• Curriculum  Studies  and  Pedagogy
• Personal Growth and  Professional  Development  :  The  Reflective  Teacher
• Safety,  Health, Hygiene  and  Nutrition
• Partnership  with Families  and  the Community
• Supervised  Teaching  Practice

If it does and it qualifies as diploma or certificate in Singapore, then he/she does not need to study DECCE or CECCE.

Once you become a full-fledged preschool teacher, you are required to complete at least 20 hours of Continuous Professional Development per year. You have the option to attend CPD courses or participate in Professional Development (PD) programmes conducted by ECDA. You can also consider other modes of PD such as web-based learning, learning journeys and sharing sessions amongst peers.