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SINGAPORE: There was “nothing untoward” in the feedback the Ministry of Education (MOE) received about Little Professors Learning Centre (LPLC) before its services were terminated<\/a>, Senior Minister of State for Education Janil Puthucheary said in parliament on Monday (Mar 2).<\/p>\n Dr Puthucheary was responding to MP Shawn Loh (PAP-Jalan Besar), who asked about MOE\u2019s whistleblowing policies, highlighting that parents had shared with him that they felt like the incident could have been possibly preventable.<\/p>\n \u201cParents in Whampoa and Boon Keng estates told me that they had given feedback about the deteriorating quality of the student care centre last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n “So when MOE said that they only found out about it in February this year, the parents told me that this did not gel with the feedback they had given,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In response, Dr Puthucheary shared that the ministry had gone back to review the complaints and feedback about LPLC over the last year.<\/p>\n “There were a variety of things, indeed, some of the feedback was about, for example, the quality of food, another child’s behaviour to a parent’s child, reports on services or the teachers and we also had a couple of reports from the teachers as employees,” he said.<\/p>\n “There was nothing untoward in the feedback that we have received from Little Professors, and nothing different from what we had seen across other operators.”<\/p>\n He added that there was a serious incident in February, prompting MOE to take action as soon as it received the information.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had, as our first priority, stepped in to provide care for the children and then subsequently, when there were some issues to do with the finances highlighted, we made a police report and that matter is under investigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n LPLC’s services were terminated by MOE on Feb 14 amid investigations into unpaid staff salaries and double deductions<\/a> from parents’ GIRO accounts. A police report has been filed over the fee anomalies.<\/p>\n The centre director could not be contacted.<\/p>\n The private operator ran student care centres in eight primary schools \u2013 Anchor Green, Jing Shan, Kranji, Punggol Cove, Waterway, Westwood, Hong Wen and White Sands.<\/p>\n It also provided Kindergarten Care for MOE\u2019s kindergartens in six of these primary schools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n