Hi,

Before registering my boy in the centre, I was quite worried whether my boy would be able to settle in quickly as he has never been in this kind of environment before. After the 3 days trial he did cried a couple of times but I was impressed with the teachers ability to get close to the him within just such a short period of time. The most suprising thing is that my boy nodded and say 'yes' to me that he would want to attend to the school.

I did register him after the trial and he has been there for 4 months now. He has been progressing very well and most importantly he is very happy there. The Teachers are very proactive in giving me a call once in a while to update on his progress or if any problem arises. I can also see the activities that were done through a dedicated website, something that I like in my busy work life.

One thing to note is that the price is on slightly higher side, but considering that the max student / children ratio is only 8 & the available facilities, I was willing to pay a little bit more for that extra attention.

 I highly recomemend this centre to anyone who wants a very clean centre & smaller groups for their kids.

Yes indeed, I've heard good things about this particular Cherie Hearts and its teachers.  Didn't realize they have such small groups - 8 is pretty good.  The Kinderland that my daughter currently goes to is 15!  But not sure if it because of Cherie Heart's policy or just because it does not have enough children.

Too bad it is too way off for me to consider.

hi, while ite true that cherie herats have a lower teacher- child ratio, it may not necessarily equal to great quality...parents must realise and understand the quality of their progranne and teachet turn over rate...i have frieds who work there and gosh! tehy were shocked by the culture that the managemnet sets..so i really urge parents to scout and compare school curriculm and programmes before enrolling! higher fees does not equal to higher quality!

I do agree with the comment here. Low student/teacher ratio & price will not guarantee quality. It really depends on how the centre is being run and managed. In my personal opinion a low student/teacher ratio is a good start though, because theoretically the teachers can pay closer attention to the students (all other things being equal). I can't comment on Cherie Hearts management since I do not know anything there. As far as I know it is a franchise so each owner will have their own style of running it, although curricullim material comes from CH themselves.

The selection of a school should not be based on this alone, there are other factors. My personal priorities are :

    1. Does my kid enjoy their time in the school?

    2. Cleanliness & stringent checks on children - hope to prevent disease outbtreak

    3. Teacher/Student ratio - attention for the younger kids

    4. Price - Need to be within my budget

    5. Curricullum - I want more variety of teachings, art, music, play & academic. I don't really want my kids to be pressured at such young age. I want them to first enjoy being in school.

    6. Location & type of setup - I live in a small flat, so hopefully the centre has more place than my own space so that the kids can run around freely.

I have a friend who is in a childcare line, and she told me that retaining staff is always a challenge especially in this current economic situation. They have to prepare to give good benefits and giving good benefit mean the customer need to pay for that unfortunately.

My first post here, and I found this site to be benefial to all parents looking for a childcare. Wish they had this when I had my first child.

Pardon my grammer and spellings error.. i dont do spell check and it is 5am in the morning and I am sleepy for I need to source for a good child care centre for my daugher.

I had the good opportunity of visiting cherie hearts centre near Bugis and my impression was:

- very small place but clean

- insufficient place for children to run around and play but really this place is well decorated.

But overall, my impression of cherie hearts is still positive and I did have the intention sending my daugher over here for childcare. So, like what every kiasu parent would have done I search more info abt this establishment. Afterall, I did meet up with their Group Exe Chairment, Dr Yap. He looks a young nice chap after a few conversation with him.

So i did more search on their website:

http://www.cheriehearts.com.sg

And lo and behold.

This is the information word for word I pasted from the website:

Dr Yap was conferred Doctorate (PhD in Entrepreneurship) by Wisconsin International University (WIU), United States of America (USA) in 2007. He is the youngest ever recipient of this honour from WIU, which has also conferred similar PhDs to well known figures like Dr Bill Gates and Dr George Quek.

Wisconsin International University... what is that? So I google it and here is the info:

http://www.wiu-usa.edu/

Some fineprints from that university webpage:

WISCONSIN INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 

At least this institution has the good sense to tell its reader that it is not associated with the more established university.

But I still cannot shake off the impression that it is 1 of those big sounding name only but no substance university where people get their degree, Phd cheaply and easily by the dozens.

And.....

Does you really believe Bill Gates really gotten a PhDs from such an institution as stated on the website or his name is pasted up there to give me an impression of credibility on this institution?

Now that brings me to begger this question, why would a Group Exe Chairman from such a fine establishment would like to get a Phd from such an institution?

Suddenly, NTUC childcare looks like a better fit for my daugher.

Looks like I am not only kiasu, i am a bit kiasi as well.

:-)

Hi Mr.Tan,

I did search around for a childcare centre before putting my boy in the bishan branch. The group chairman obtained his Doctor degree as an Honorary, which means it is given and he didn't study for it. I believe he got if for "entrepreneurship". Li KaShing received a a numeraous honorary doctorate degree from various uni.

 To be honest I didn't even consider what the exec chairman has achieved, I didn't believe he will take care of the day to day running of the centre. I made my decision based on the individual centre's staff & environement as they are the one that will make the impact on my boy's development.

I didn't consider NTUC since it was a little bit far from my place.

Li Ka Shing info i found on website:

http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com/eng/about/chairman/chairman.htm

This is an interesting revelation, and I did a bit of google search, and found the following wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_International_University_College, which essentially states that the WIU is in no way registered in Wisconsin, and has no presence in the US other than an Idaho-registered address for "tax purposes".  Idaho, incidentally, has a "loophole" that "allows degree mills to operate if they don't issue degrees to Idaho residents. Idaho legislature is considering a bill to fix this problem in 2006."  See here.

The article did nothing less than call the WIU a degree mill, and pointed to the fact that the WIU is accredited by the "dreadful" Accrediting Commission International (ACI), which has its own dubious history.  Here's an excerpt from www.degree.net:

"Accrediting Commission International for Schools, Colleges and Theological Seminaries Beebe, Arkansas. See also: "International Accrediting Commission for Schools, Colleges and Theological Seminaries" in this section. After the IAC was fined and closed down by authorities in Missouri in 1989, Dr. Reuter retired. A short time later, ACI opened in the adjoining state, and wrote a letter to the IAC schools offering them automatic accreditation by the ACI. I am not aware of any that turned it down. ACI refuses to make public a list of schools they have accredited. We have noted more than 130 schools that claim ACI accreditation, most of them apparently evangelical Bible schools, but more than a few nonreligious schools as well, including Century University, Columbia Southern University, Wisconsin International University, and Western States University."

So WIU is at best a "non-traditional institution" that tries to bolster its global standing by conferring honorary degrees to international successful entrepreneurs in Asia, and at worst a degree mill.

It seems strange that Mr Sam Yap would not have done the necessary checks on WIU, which would have taken less than 10mins.  And it does seem wrong for him to let the press continue to market himself such as this and on his website.  I couldn't find any information about Bill Gates being conferred a WIU honorary degree... what is known is that Mr Gates was conferred an honorary Harvard degree.

But what jane_tam said is right.  Strictly speaking, Mr Sam Yap did nothing wrong - he only accepted an honorary degree from an institution that seems to be of good standing at first glance.  And he may not even know what it was.  In any case, he won't be the person looking after your kids on a daily basis.  So the point is, if your child is enjoying him/herself in a Cherie Hearts school and learning lots of stuff, why let this affect you?  Remember that Cherie Hearts is essentially a franchise, ie. it is operated by different people under a common marketing brand.  You could be punishing the innocent franchisees instead.

The Straits Times strikes again, this time with a very good article on degree mills.  In the article, the ST essentially confirms that Wisconsin International University (WIU) is a degree mill.

I applaud their decision to name some of the prominent business people they have uncovered who are known to be passing themselves off with such fake degrees, sometimes even with great fanfare.  Singaporean consumers are confused enough by the incessant marketing messages from the myriad of alternatives available for services that they use - it is no wonder that purchase decisions are often made based on how professional and knowledgeable the service providers appear to be.  It is for this reason that the more enterprising entrepreneurs seek to "fast-track" their reputation by buying their "expertise".  This is an outright attempt to hoodwink consumers, and it should be classified as such, and perpetrators should be rapped for misrepresenting their services to the public.  We have to nip the problem in the bud, before it makes a mockery of the meritocratic society that we are so proud of.

its scary how so many preschool operators have fake degrees..the article also cite ‘Dr’ T. Chandroo who runs a chain of 60 MMI Montessori kindergartens...
It is so sad as some of this business man are quite capable and their franchises are quite sucessful. 

hianz, that's why sometimes, teaching the kids right values are more important because no matter how smart or how academically superb they are, a moment of dishonesty can lead to their shame and downfall...