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Summary of MOE’s key announcements at COS Debate 2008

Preparing Students for the Future:

New School of Science and Technology to Open in 2010

MOE will be establishing a new School of Science and Technology from January 2010 for students to enjoy more choices in learning pathways. The school will offer a four-year programme leading to the Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘O’ Levels. It will teach regular academic subjects and offer students a range of options in applied areas related to technology, media and design. The school will adopt innovative teaching methods that will help students better appreciate the real-world relevance of what they learn.

Levelling Up Opportunities:

Improving the Quality of Pre-School Education

To further improve the quality of pre-school education, MOE will:

  1. Raise the minimum academic qualifications of pre-school teachers; and
  2. Develop and implement (together with MCYS) a voluntary quality assurance and accreditation framework for pre-schools from 2011.

To support these measures, the Government will provide additional funding support for eligible pre-school centres, as well as bursaries for teachers to upgrade their academic and professional qualifications.

Helping Students Who Are At-risk of Dropping-out Stay in School

To assist students who are at-risk of dropping-out remain in school and maximise their potential, MOE will be introducing more measures to strengthen the engagement of our students and providing more support and resources to schools.

Specifically, MOE will:

  1. Support schools with additional manpower resources
  2. Support early intervention through identifying and monitoring students at-risk
  3. Strengthen student engagement
  4. Establish closer partnerships with community groups to provide comprehensive and holistic support for students

Providing More Opportunities in University Education:

Expansion and Diversification of the University Landscape

MOE will be expanding and injecting more diversity into the university education landscape, through:

  1. Establishing a new public-funded university
  2. Establishing a Liberal Arts College

MOE will also reach its target of providing university places for 25% of each Singaporean Primary One cohort in 2008. Beyond 2008, MOE will continue to increase the number of university places to achieve the target subsidised university cohort participation rate of 30% by 2015.

Strengthening Singapore as an Education Hub:

Enhancing Regulation of the Private Education Sector

Regulation of the private education sector will be consolidated in the Ministry of Education (MOE) and enhanced, to further improve the reputation of SingaporeÕs private education sector. MOE will adopt the following measures:

  1. Introducing a new Private Education Act to strengthen the existing registration framework and enforcement provisions
  2. Establishing a Council to implement the regulatory framework
  3. Introducing a quality certification scheme called ‘EduTrust’ to replace CaseTrust.