Press Releases
Uplifting Pre-School and Special Education
To enhance the quality of teaching and learning in the Pre-School Education and Special Education (SPED) sectors, the Ministry of Education (MOE) will provide more support for educators and fund more infrastructure upgrading works.
Over the next five years, MOE will double the funding for the pre-school education sector to $290 million, from $150 million invested over the last five years. In particular, more scholarships, bursaries and teaching awards will be offered to pre-school educators.
For the SPED sector, MOE will continue to step up support through funding for SPED schools to hire more teacher aides for students with high needs and through the upgrading of SPED school infrastructure. This is in addition to the recurrent investment of $500 million for the SPED sector over the next five years, which translates to about $17,000 per student per year, approximately 2.5 times the funding provided for a primary school student. In addition, more financial assistance will be provided to SPED students from low-income families.
More Professional Pathways for Pre-School Educators
In 2008, MOE and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) announced plans to raise the minimum academic and professional qualifications for pre-school educators, with a target for all pre-school centres to have at least 75% of all their teachers meeting these new requirements by January 2013. As of January 2011, 86% of kindergarten teachers and 70% of child care teachers have either attained or are undergoing training for the Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education – Teaching (DECCE-T). By tapping on the funding support from the Government, pre-school centres are on track to achieve the 2013 target. Therefore, over the next few years, MOE and MCYS will further enhance their support for pre-school educators.
MOE and MCYS will provide up to 1,400 scholarships, bursaries and teaching awards for professional development opportunities of pre-school educators over the next three years. If fully awarded, this will cost up to $21 million, and represents a four-fold increase from the $5 million that had been disbursed over the last three years for more than 300 scholarships, bursaries and teaching awards.
The MOE scholarships, teaching awards and bursaries1 will be offered to attract good candidates with an interest in pre-school education to join the sector. They will also enable incumbent pre-school educators to pursue higher qualifications in Early Childhood Education (ECE) to build their leadership and specialist capacities.
- More awards will be given for the following courses, which cater to both new entrants and existing educators:
- Diploma in ECE offered at the local polytechnics2
- Bachelor in ECE with Management offered by UniSIM
- New awards will be given for the following courses to strengthen specialist knowledge and leadership capacity:
- Master of Education (Early Childhood) currently offered by NIE
- Bachelor of Early Childhood and Chinese Language Education offered by UniSIM
- Specialist Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education offered by Ngee Ann Polytechnic
- Certificate courses in specialist areas such as music and movement, art and drama
The awards are based on nominations from eligible kindergartens. Interested applicants should apply with the support of their kindergartens during the prescribed application period3. More details on MOE awards will be provided nearer the application period.
More Support for Special Education Schools — High Needs Grant
To provide more customised support for students with high needs in the SPED schools, MOE will work with the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) to increase resources for these schools through a new High Needs Grant from April 2011. Up to $2.3 million per year will be set aside to enable SPED schools to hire additional teacher aides for students with high needs in their schools.
Students with high needs are those with challenging behaviours which require greater attention and care from teachers and staff. With the additional teacher aides, SPED schools will be able to customise the level of support required, such as having a smaller teacher to student ratio for students with higher needs. To ensure that teachers and teacher aides have the capability to support the needs of this group of students, MOE has plans to provide customised training for SPED schools to manage challenging behaviour.
Schools can start applying for the grant in April, and will receive the funds in July. School applications will be jointly evaluated by MOE and NCSS.
Upgrading of Infrastructure for SPED Schools
In the past decade, MOE has invested $120 million on building and upgrading 17 SPED schools. MOE will continue to enhance SPED school infrastructure by allocating up to $30 million over the next three years to build and upgrade two SPED schools. The two schools, Delta Senior School and Metta School, will enjoy specialised facilities, such as a Food & Beverage Training Room and Office Skills Training Room, for the implementation of their vocational training programmes.
Financial Assistance for SPED Students
As announced in Budget 2011, MOE will provide a top-up of around $15,000 to the School Management Committee of each SPED school to help needy students from low-income families. In addition, MOE, together with NCSS, will provide the SPED Financial Assistance Scheme4 to SPED schools so that needy students will be subsidised for their school fees, uniforms and textbooks, and receive a 75% subsidy on their exam fees.
Footnotes:
- There will be up to 550 such awards, costing $8 million.↩
- The Diploma level course in ECE is offered at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic.↩
- Applications will open in the following months:↩
a. Master of Education in NIE: August
b. Bachelor of Arts in UniSIM: February and August, for July and January intakes respectively
c. Specialist Diploma in Ngee Ann Polytechnic: January and June for April and October intakes respectively.
- As the fund-raising arm of the NCSS, the Community Chest will be stepping up efforts to garner more donations to co-fund this scheme.↩