Infant care centre visit questions: ECDA Class A licence checks

If you are visiting an ECDA-licensed infant care centre for a baby under 18 months, three things are worth checking yourself: the licence class and its tenure, the certification level of the educators named for the infant room, and how that room is staffed day to day. None of them predicts how your baby will develop, but each is something you can read, ask for or watch while you are there. ^{[1] [2]}

The timing makes these questions sharper. The Straits Times reported on 28 August 2026 that Singapore will hire 1,800 more infant care educators by 2030, and that from September ECDA will expand the Manpower Hiring Grant so training stipends reach a wider range of infant care certifications, including the Assistant Infant Educator and Fundamentals Certificate in Infant Care courses. That is employer- and trainee-side policy, not a change to your family's entitlements — but a larger and more varied pool of new educators is exactly why the certification question belongs in your own visit notes. ^[3]

Step one: read the licence and its tenure

Any paid service involving the regular care or education of five or more children under seven must be licensed by ECDA, and ECDA issues three classes of preschool licence: Class A for infant care, Class B for childcare and Class C for kindergarten. A Class A infant care centre caters to children aged 2 months to 18 months. One preschool may hold more than one class of licence, so check that the class covering your baby's age is the one shown to you for the infant room. ^{[1] [2]}

Licences last 6, 12, 24 or 36 months depending on how well regulatory requirements are met, and new preschools start on a default 12-month licence before reassessment. Every licensed preschool must display its licence where you can easily see it on a visit, and you can check the tenure yourself using the Preschool Search feature in the LifeSG app. ECDA's own advice is that a longer licence is not the only thing to weigh, and it asks parents to visit and speak with the principal. ^[2]

One of the five areas ECDA assesses when issuing or renewing a licence is staff provision and quality, including whether there are sufficient qualified programme staff; another is school experience, which ECDA describes as including respectful and responsive staff-child interactions. That is the regulatory frame behind the questions in the next two steps — it tells you what ECDA looks at, not what any individual room will be like on the day you visit. ^[2]

Step two: ask which certification levels educators hold for babies

ECDA educator certification levels indicate the age group of children an educator can be deployed to teach, which is why the level matters more than a job title. The certification application can be submitted by a childcare centre or a kindergarten, and upon ECDA's approval the educator is issued a Letter of Notification stating their certification level(s). For a baby in the 2-to-18-month band, ask the centre which level the educators in that room hold, and whether the Letters of Notification can be shown to you. ^[4]

ECDA also publishes the training route for that age band. For working with children 2 months to 18 months, it lists an ECDA-accredited certificate-level programme offered by private training agencies — the WSQ Higher Certificate in Infant Care — and states that all applicants must be at least 21 years of age at the point of enrolment. Separately, in the document checklist ECDA requires educators who already hold certification to submit when they apply for another, one item being a copy of a Letter of Notification issued by MCYS, MSF, MOE or ECDA. That checklist is an applicant-side requirement, not guidance for parents; it is simply a reminder that the Letter of Notification is the document recording an educator's level. ^{[5] [6]}

One optional suggestion for your visit: run the same question at each centre in the same words. In a hypothetical comparison, a parent might find one principal naming each educator's certification level for the infant room on the spot, and at another centre a promise to confirm by email afterwards. Neither answer is a rating — it simply tells you how transparent each centre is about the adults who will hold the day. ^{[4] [1]}

Step three: test whether the same adults stay with your baby

ECDA's parent guidance tells you to find out who the key staff caring for your child will be, to ask about the staff-child ratio and whether staff have the requisite training and experience, and to observe how teachers interact with the children during your visit. Practice varies by operator: The Straits Times reported that E-Bridge Pre-School runs a ratio of one educator to five infants, which describes that centre's own arrangement rather than a requirement you can hold others to. ^{[1] [3]}

Then match the centre's clock to your own. A Class A centre's full-day programme runs 7am to 7pm, and it may also offer half-day or flexible options of at least 12 hours a week and 3 hours per session, with infant care available 5 or 5½ days a week excluding Sundays and gazetted public holidays. Ask how the infant room is staffed on a day when a teacher is on leave, and read the centre's parent handbook and enrolment terms, since ECDA notes that policies on enrolment, withdrawal and fees are managed directly by preschools. ^[1]

Know which of the three infant settings you are checking

A licensed Class A centre is only one of three arrangements. Under the ECDA Childminding Pilot for Infants, which runs from 1 December 2024 to 31 December 2027, each childminder may care for one to three infants at any one time, in the childminder's home or a community space; ECDA conducts background checks before deployment, and childminders must complete mandatory training such as infant first aid and basic infant care. Eligibility is narrower than a centre's: the infant must be a Singapore Citizen aged 2 to 18 months and not concurrently enrolled in an ECDA-licensed infant care centre. ECDA has appointed three operators — EduNanny by Butler, Kidibliss and NannyPro Care. ^[7]

Private in-home nanny care is a third arrangement again, separate from the pilot. EduNanny, a BUTLER business and one of ECDA's appointed pilot operators, describes its separate private nanny service as bringing certified, background-checked childminders into the family's own home, trained in CPR, first aid, child safety, hygiene and food handling, with further pedagogical and developmental training through the EduNanny Academy. EduNanny's parent journal publishes this guide, so read that account as an affiliated one. ^[8]

So decide at the visit, not after it. The licence on the wall and its tenure, the certification level of the educators named for the 2-to-18-month room, and the room's daily staffing pattern are the three things you can actually see, read or ask for — and none of them tells you how your baby will develop, only who will be holding the day. ^{[1] [2] [4]}

Disclosure: EduNanny is a BUTLER business. This article covers an EduNanny or BUTLER service.

Sources

EduNanny Editorial · AI-assisted research and writing, reviewed by our automated editorial team. Sources checked 2026-10-08. Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration.