How to Hire the Right Preschool or Infant Care Educator in Singapore

Hiring for a preschool, childcare or infant care centre in Singapore isn’t like hiring for most corporate roles – the candidate has to be ECDA-certified for the specific age group they’ll be working with before you can even consider them, on top of the usual fit and experience questions. Here’s what we look at when we’re helping a centre fill an educator or centre leadership role, and where things tend to go wrong when centres try to do it alone.

Start with the certification category, not the job title

“Preschool teacher” isn’t one single qualification in Singapore – ECDA certifies educators against categories tied to the age group they can teach, from infant and toddler care through to kindergarten. Before a centre even gets to interviewing, we confirm which certification category the role actually requires and screen candidates against it. A candidate who’s a great interview but isn’t ECDA-certified for that age group simply can’t be deployed into the role, so this has to be the first filter, not an afterthought.

Verify, don't just take a certificate at face value

A number of local Early Childhood qualifications can be verified digitally through OpenCerts, which has been available since 2019 for qualifications including ITE diplomas, polytechnic qualifications and specific WSQ certifications. For candidates with foreign qualifications, ECDA has a separate recognition pathway with its own academic and language requirements. Either way, we verify certification status before we put a candidate forward, rather than leaving it for the centre to discover at onboarding.

Ask about specialisation, not just certification level

Being certified to teach preschool-aged children (18 months to 6 years) under a Diploma in Early Childhood Care & Education – Teaching (DECCE-T) or its WSQ equivalent doesn’t automatically mean an educator is trained for infant care. ECDA’s Professional Development Programme for Infant and Early Years Educators is a separate, structured pathway for educators who want to specialise in children aged 2 months to 3 years, and it’s worth asking candidates directly whether they’ve completed it if the role involves an infant room.

Factor in the centre leadership pathway separately

If you’re hiring for a Centre Leader or Principal role rather than a classroom educator role, the qualification bar is different again, and it’s worth confirming the specific requirement for that position with ECDA directly rather than assuming a teaching certification is sufficient on its own.

How Wecruit helps

We recruit specifically within Singapore’s early childhood sector, which means we’re already screening for the right ECDA certification category, checking foreign qualification recognition where relevant, and asking about infant/early years specialisation before a candidate ever reaches your shortlist. For more on the qualification pathways themselves, see our complete guide to preschool and early childhood educator recruitment in Singapore.

If you’re hiring for a preschool, childcare or infant care role, get in touch with our team and we’ll help you find educators who are actually eligible to start.