10 April 1999

SPEECH BY DR ALINE WONG, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE FOR HEALTH AND EDUCATION, AT THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF ANNUAL SPORTS DAY AT 50 PRINCE CHARLES SQUARE ON SATURDAY, 10 APRIL 1999 AT 10.00 AM

Ms Barbara D’Cotta-Ang, Acting Principal of the Singapore School for the Deaf,

I am very happy to be here to join you on your annual sports day. I am told that the theme for your sporting events this year is ‘Sports is fun’. Indeed, this should be so. It is also in line with our national goal to make exercise and sports a way of healthy living.

2 I understand that the SAD has plans to co-locate the school, the vocational school for the handicapped as well as your association’s headquarters. This 3-in-one concept would certainly place you in a stronger position to provide education to the hearing impaired among our young.

3 I am delighted to note that your school is among the first special schools to initiate Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) to enhance the opportunities for our disabled pupils to maximise their potential. This project is one among many special projects that you have implemented with vision and forward planning. I am confident that your students will benefit from the CAL initiative, just as they have benefitted from your past efforts to prepare many of them for mainstream schooling.

4 In order to maximise the full potential of each and every pupil in school, I am pleased to announce that MOE will provide additional facilities for disabled children in both mainstream and special schools.

5 In the pipeline is MOE’s plan to increase the number of mainstream schools with full facilities to cater to the physically handicapped. Since 1992, MOE has started fitting out new schools in various HDB New Towns with full facilities for the physically handicapped. The facilities include a lift, toilets for the handicapped and ambulant disabled, slope ramps, car park and handrail extension along stair cases. Today there are 14 schools with these full facilities. MOE will equip more schools within school clusters with full facilities to integrate the physically handicapped pupils. Over the next 3 years, we expect to have one specially-fitted school per school cluster. The total number will be between 50 – 55 in all. This would greatly facilitate the transportation of physically disabled students to attend mainstream primary and secondary schools, as well as give parents a much wider choice of schools for their child to attend.

6 MOE will continue to help hearing impaired pupils to cope with their study. MOE will set up more designated school centres to provide additional learning facilities and support for hearing impaired pupils. Currently there are 2 designated secondary schools for HI pupils who require sign communication and 3 remedial centres for HI pupils who are auditory oral. More designated schools will be set up to give HI pupils more choice of schools. For these designated centres, MOE will equip them with FM equipment to facilitate hearing and learning.

7 For this year, FM equipment will be piloted in 2 secondary schools where there is a bigger number of HI pupils. With the provision of FM equipment, HI pupils will be able to hear their teachers better and cope better in their study.

8 For the Visually Handicapped (VH) pupils, MOE will identify 4 schools, one in each zone where assistive learning devices will be provided. These will include the latest technology to assist learning, such as talking dictionaries, braille readers and scanners, voice synthesizers, talking scientific calculators and voice-to-text software to enhance the VH pupils’ access to the IT facilites which are already provided under the IT MasterPlan for schools.

9 MOE’s additional provisions for disabled pupils in mainstream schools will also be extended to special schools (SPED schools) which prepare their students for mainstream education. Currently there are 3 SPED schools run by VWOs which follow mainstream curriculum and prepare pupils for the Primary School Leaving Examinations. They are Singapore School for the Deaf, Canossian School for the Hearing Impaired (CSHI), and Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped (SSVH). For these schools, apart from the additional assistive learning devices for HI and VH students in general, MOE will provide computers and computer-related facilities which will benefit the children. However, at this point in time, we are not sure what kinds of computer facilities will benefit these pupils best and in a cost-effective manner. We will need to study carefully the specialised requirements of children in these schools and train the teachers before equipping the schools with IT facilities.

10 Lastly, for the other 13 SPED schools, MOE has plans to increase the provision of recurrent votes to enable them to buy IT related facilities which will enhance the pupils’ learning.

11 The above additional facilities, when fully implemented, would incur an estimated capital cost of $7.8m and a recurrent cost of about $267,000 per year. My ministry is committed to helping disabled children in mainstream and SPED schools to learn and be more independent. MOE officers will continue to source for practices and resources which would best support their education and maximise every pupil’s potential.

12 Once again, I commend the SAD’s tireless efforts in providing good education opportunities to HI pupils, and all the best to your future plans. Congratulations also to the winners at your sports events.