Introduction
Full day schooling refers to a longer day at preschool where they not only learn but are also given time for play. (Lamphere, 2009) Full day preschools run for five hours or longer for five days a week. Half day preschools run for approximately 3 hours for five days a week. (Rosamilia, 2008) Researchers have constantly compared these two types of schooling and most studies came to a conclusion that full day schools are better than half day schools. There are a few example of studies conducted to show this. Some examples include: A study conducted by Cryan et al. in 1992 in two phases on the effects of half-day and all-day kindergarten programs on children's academic and behavioral success …show more content…
(Rothenberg, 2009)
Secondly, the children also receive the same quality of education as those in full day preschools or kindergartens. (Ast, 2010;Rothernberg, 2009) The children go through similar experiences but just that one is longer and the other is shorter.
These show that there are other programs besides full day kindergartens which young chidren can benefit from.
Conclusion
In the context of Singapore, there isn’t much of an issue about half day versus full day kindergarten. This is because Singapore has mainly focused on half day kindergartens. Some of the reasons as to why that might be the case is similar to the disadvantages stated above. Just like in some parts of Canada and US, Singapore has limited space to set up full-day kindergarten and it requires more sources, equipment and etc. Singapore’s space is already limited in space and it requires more space for other more important things thus, it can’t be used just for kindergartens. Statistics have shown that 15% of Singapore’s land has been located for housing, 17% for recreational and community needs. The rest of the land is used for commerce, industry, infrastructure, utilities and transport and reservoirs, defense facilities and cemetery and undeveloped land.(Yearbook of Statistics Singapore, department of Statistics Singapore[online], 2012) This shows that there isn’t sufficient space to build more kindergartens or expand it. If Singapore