With all the talk about early childhood and pre-school education in Singapore, Modern Montessori International (MMI) has also stepped forward to ride on this wave. It has organised a one-day lecture, The Relevance & Effectiveness of Montessori Education in the 21st Century, slated to be held on Sept 1 at the NUSS Guild House. Singapore's former president S.R. Nathan is expected to grace the event.

MMI chairman and chief executive officer T. Chandroo told tabla!: "We want to create that awareness and to educate parents about Montessori education. It was timely to bring in experts in this field and talk on the subject of early childhood education."

The conference, the first of its kind in Singapore, will feature renowned speakers from Europe like German professor Winfried Bohm, Montessori special education consultant Wendy Barbara Fidler, Modern Montessori College manager Marianne Bourke as well as Singapore- based educator Michael W. Phillips. Topics such special education, cosmic education and analytical developments of a child will be discussed at length at the conference.

"It isn't about Montessori alone. It's just a holistic approach to early childhood education with the emphasis on Montessori," added Dr Chandroo, who is also the chairman of the recently formed Association of Early Childhood and Training Services which includes names like Kinderland, Eton House and MMI.

As one of the more successful early childhood education brands in Singapore, the MMI Group currently has over 70 pre-schools and teacher training centres across the Asia-Pacific region. In 2003, MMI made its mark in India and to date it has more than 15 schools and five training centres.

"We see great potential (in India). We churn out more than 1,000 teachers a year because they are in need of early childhood educators," said Dr Chandroo who added that Vietnam and Myanmmar are also within MMI's grasp.

While he sees great opportunities in these countries, Dr Chandroo is concerned about the issue at home.

He said: "The entire industry is having an acute shortage of teachers. And that's something we all have to face. One of the reasons for the sudden shortage is the increased criteria for early childhood education.

"The other reason is that one has to wait for a longer period before being able to teach. The contact hours have increased from 700 hours to 1,200."

Dr Chandroo also pointed to higher wages for teachers and higher rents for premises as factors affecting the industry and which, invariably, lead to higher school fees.