I REFER to Mr Sebastian Tan's letter, "Define pre-school teachers' roles clearly" (my paper, Jan 15).

We agree with Mr Tan that pre-school teachers should be accorded greater respect by society. He also proposed relieving pre-school teachers of duties such as bathing and cleaning children, aspects of the job known as "routine care".

As the leading pre-school operator in Singapore, we would like to share our experiences and thoughts on this issue.

We found that very young children benefit significantly when they receive direct and physical care from their teachers.

It enhances their emotional development as they build trust and a sense of security when the bond between child and teacher is being constantly reinforced.

It is therefore important for pre-school teachers to integrate routine care into an early-childhood education programme.

As a child grows older and reaches the age of five or six, he becomes more independent as he has been learning self-help skills since young.

The teachers supervise children as they perform routine- care activities such as bathing and taking meals.

Despite this, we recognise the demands on teachers who have to balance implementing a curriculum and overseeing routine care.

We are exploring ways to reduce the job scope of pre-school teachers, such as reducing their administrative workload.

The job of a pre-school teachers is an admirable and meaningful one. We have therefore embarked on measures ranging from salary increases to better career-progression paths to reward and create a more conducive environment for our pre-school teachers.

Employers play a part in helping pre-school professionals, so that they can do their best to nurture young children.

We hope that our measures can inspire other operators to also look into sustainable ways of giving pre-school teachers due recognition.

Ms Ho Yin Fong
Deputy CEO
NTUC First Campus
Co-operative Ltd

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