School Fund-Raising Projects

Name and Constituency of  Member of Parliament

Mr Ang Mong Seng
MP for Hong Kah GRC

Question

To ask the Acting Minister for Education whether there are any regulations or guidelines on fund raising projects for school principals to follow in order to spare students from committing too much of their study time, effort and money to such projects.

Response
 
Principals are responsible for deciding on fund-raising activities of their schools.  They can decide on type and timing of the fund-raising activities.  However, MOE does have guidelines to ensure that students are not committed to too many of such activities.  As a guide, each student should not participate in more than two fund-raising activities a year, in addition to Sharity Day for primary school students and Youth Day Collection for secondary school students, both for the Community Chest.

Students found with Pornographic VCDs

Name and Constituency of  Member of Parliament

Mr S Iswaran
MP for West Coast GRC

Question

To ask the Acting Minister for Education in light of the recent incident at Kent Ridge Secondary School, where students were found with pornographic VCDs and the incidents were reported to the Police, what guidelines on how to handle such incidents have his Ministry issued to schools.

Response

1.    MOE has given schools broad guidelines on the approaches and actions they could adopt in managing student discipline.  These guidelines set out the positive, proactive approach schools should adopt in handling discipline, as part of their broader efforts to help our young become responsible thinking citizens.

2.   The guidelines recommend the development of a coherent, whole-school framework for managing discipline, comprising measures ranging from the preventive to the corrective  -  in other words, from educating and counselling the students to taking disciplinary actions. They provide schools with examples of programmes and strategies that they can adopt  to manage discipline in their schools.  They also advise schools on how they can work in partnership with parents, and obtain the assistance of agencies such as Voluntary Welfare Organisations, self-help groups and the Police. 

3.    While the MOE guidelines help achieve  a broad consistency of principles and approaches in managing discipline amongst  schools, each school has to decide on  its own specific  approaches. This will depend on the nature of its student population and the history of discipline in the school.

4.    Schools also have to decide  on the actions most appropriate in each situation, such as  counselling the students involved, disciplining them within the school, referring them to other agencies for further counselling and help, or reporting the matter to the Police. In particular, a decision on whether to call in the Police has to be made by the Principal,  depending on the severity of the offence, the scale of the problem,  and the willingness of the students involved to co-operate in the school's investigations. These are ground decisions that the Principal is in the best position to make.