Eight Schools Receive the 2006 Programme for School-based Excellence Award

Home > Media Centre > Press Releases

15 Feb 06

EIGHT SCHOOLS RECEIVE THE 2006 PROGRAMME FOR SCHOOL-BASED EXCELLENCE AWARD

1. Eight primary schools have been named recipients of the 2006 Programme for School-Based Excellence (PSE) award. In addition, the 16 schools which were awarded PSE in 2005 had their PSE status renewed this year. At a visit to Maha Bodhi School, itself a PSE recipient, this morning, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education, announced the recipients of the 2006 PSE award.

PROGRAMME FOR SCHOOL-BASED EXCELLENCE AWARD

2. The PSE is an important step in our efforts to develop strong primary schools with distinctive character to give more opportunities for our pupils to develop different areas of excellence.

3. The proposals were evaluated on the following criteria:

a.      Demonstrated strength of the school in the proposed area of school-based excellence;
b.      Sustainability of the proposal in the long-term (3 to 5 years);
c.      Strong educational value, especially in character development for pupils; and
d.      Strong support of stakeholders in the proposed area of school-based excellence.

4. Under the PSE, schools would be given more leeway for developing their niche areas, including hiring of additional staff or instructors, training of teachers in the niche area, and minor infrastructure development.

5. Schools that receive the PSE funding will be asked to submit an annual report on the uses of the funds during the past year, and whether the objectives of the programmes have been reached.

RECIPIENTS OF PSE

6. A total of 36 schools submitted applications for 2006. Of these, eight schools were selected. The list of schools is as follows:

1. Gongshang Primary
2. Kong Hwa Primary
3. Maha Bodhi School
4. Montfort Junior
5. Nanyang Primary
6. Telok Kurau Primary
7. Yio Chu Kang Primary
8. Zhenghua Primary

7. The areas of excellence identified by the eight schools cover the various domains of development, including the cognitive, physical and social, aesthetics and moral.

8. The 16 schools which were awarded the PSE in 2005 and had their award renewed for 2006 are:

1. Admiralty Primary
2. CHIJ Kellock Primary
3. CHIJ St Nicholas School (Primary)
4. Chongfu Primary
5. Fuhua Primary
6. Greenridge Primary
7. Hougang Primary
8. Ngee Ann Primary
9. Park View Primary
10. Pei Chun Public School
11. Rosyth School
12. Rulang Primary
13. St Andrew Jr School
14. St Stephen’s School
15. Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (Primary)
16. Tao Nan School

9. In all, the PSE award recipients cover a wide spread of schools in Singapore to ensure greater access to all pupils. More information about the programmes proposed by the 2006 award recipients can be found in Annex A.

SCHOOL VISIT TO MAHA BODHI SCHOOL

10. Maha Bodhi School has an established tradition in promoting Aesthetics. With the PSE funding, the school hopes to extend its Aesthetics programme to all Primary 1 to Primary 6 pupils. These programmes aim to enhance students’ appreciation and develop their talent in music, dance, drama as well as both 2-Dimensional (2-D) and 3-Dimensional (3-D) artwork.

11. The school showcased its Aesthetics programmes to Minister during his visit.

BACKGROUND

12. At the MOE Work Plan Seminar 2004 on 29 Sep 2004, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education, announced that MOE would launch the PSE for primary schools from Jan 2005 to encourage greater diversity in our primary school landscape. Successful applicant schools would receive a recurrent grant of up to $100,000 per year from 2005, so as to further raise the quality and outreach of their school-based programmes/initiatives.