ENHANCING SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

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18 September 2004

ENHANCING SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

1. The Ministry of Education (MOE) has undertaken a review of measures to cater to children with special needs, in both Special Education (SPED) schools and mainstream schools. We will introduce the following initiatives to raise the quality of education for children with special needs:

a. Enhance support for SPED schools:

Provide additional funding to improve the quality of professional resources in SPED schools by helping the SPED schools to recruit better qualified teachers, providing better professional development for the staff and improving the curriculum design;

Build an additional SPED school to cater to children with autism;

Increase support for SPED school infrastructure, by accelerating and completing the redevelopment of 9 purpose-built SPED schools by 2008, and providing additional development funding.

b. Enhance support for mainstream schools, especially by recruiting and training more teachers in special needs education.
In all, MOE will set aside $55 million a year till 2008 to implement these initiatives.

INITIATIVES TO ENHANCE SUPPORT FOR SPED SCHOOLS

Additional funding to improve the quality of professional resources in SPED schools

2. MOE will provide an increase of $12m, on top of the existing $30m, for SPED schools to support their annual operations. This is a 40% increase that brings the level of MOE annual subsidy per student to 2.5 times that for a student in a mainstream primary school, as compared to the current 1.8 times. Together with the support provided by NCSS, this will provide SPED schools with nearly 4 times the level of funding per student in the mainstream.

3. The additional funding received will help SPED schools improve on the quality of their professional resources by recruiting better qualified teachers, providing better professional development opportunities for staff and improving curriculum design. To further support teacher development, MOE will work with NIE to mount courses specifically on special education, and to include SPED school staff in development and leadership courses at NIE.
Additional SPED School for Autism

4. MOE and NCSS will work with the Autism Association (Singapore) to build a new SPED school. This school will specialise in catering to the needs of children with autism and will help ease the current wait list of children with such needs.

INCREASED SUPPORT FOR SPED SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE

5. MOE will accelerate the pace of developing purpose-built schools so that all 9 schools due for redevelopment will have their new or refurbished school buildings by 2008, instead of in 2012 as previously planned.

6. MOE will also increase its share of development costs for SPED school buildings from the current 90% to 95%. SPED schools can channel the funds which have been freed up from their share of development costs, into other school projects or programmes.

INITIATIVES TO ENHANCE SUPPORT FOR MAINSTREAM SCHOOLS

7. Initiatives for mainstream schools will help students with mild to moderate levels of special needs who can cope with the regular school curriculum to remain in the majnstream schools and do well. Early detection and appropriate intervention and support can help these students achieve successful outcomes in school and in life. The increased resources will enhance current intervention and support programmes in schools.

8. Funding will be provided yearly to designated mainstream schools to cater to students with dyslexia and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). The designated schools will have dedicated staff with training in special education, who will provide a combination of in-class support and specialist intervention for children with learning disabilities. MOE envisages that about 20 primary schools and 30 secondary schools will be designated as such and receive additional funding for the purpose.

9. Training in special needs will also be provided for selected mainstream teachers across schools. This will raise general awareness of different types of learning disabilities and help teachers identify and manage children with mild learning disabilities. Over the next 5 years, a core of teachers (10% of teaching staff in all schools) would be trained at a certificate level or its equivalent to enable them to better support students with special needs in their respective schools.

TIME-FRAME FOR IMPLEMENTATION

10. Implementation of the above recommendations will be phased in from 2005 onwards.