During this COVID-19 outbreak, it’s easy to be on the side of the people or businesses that are impacted directly from the virus.
Retail shops, F&B outlets or airlines companies.
But we forget that each of these businesses has an ecosystem with invisible people being affected.
Cases in point: The manufacturer and distributor of the stocks in retail shops or the software developer of the airline companies.
And thankfully, the authorities have not forgotten about this “missing link” during the closure of schools and pre-schools.
Parents Must Still Pay Pre-School Fees During Shutdown
You’d probably know by now that pre-schools would be closed from 8 April 2020 to 4 May 2020.
Unlike primary or secondary schools whereby the fees are less than $2o or $30 a month for Singaporeans, fees for pre-schools aren’t for the faint-hearted if there is no subsidies from the Government; it can go up to $3,000 for private ones.
Even for the public ones, the fee can still go up to $850.50 a month.
Depending on your household income, you can get subsidies and you might need to pay less than $100 a month, but that’s still a lot of money…especially if the school is closed and you’re essentially paying for nothing.
Because it’s announced by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) that parents would still have to pay the pre-school fees—even if it’s $3,000 a month.
Where’s the logic?
The “invisible link” that was mentioned in the earlier part of this article.
During this trying period, as we sympathise with parents for having to pay for nothing, we once again forget that pre-schools are essentially businesses, and they still need to pay rent and manpower.
MSF said, “If the Government were to require all service providers, many of which are small and medium enterprises, to provide refunds when they continue to incur costs, many of these companies would face closure or have to lay off their workers or reduce their salaries.
“Rather than to mandate refunds which help families but hurt businesses, the Government is implementing assistance measures, to help both families and businesses.”
In addition, while pre-school technically would close, some might remain open just to provide “limited services” for children of parents who need to work in essential services, like parents who are both nurses.
So if you’re a parent and are complaining about why you still have to pay for nothing, remember: you yourself are most likely being paid for nothing, too.
Look at the bigger picture and you’d see the invisible links.
