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Last Updated: 15 August 2023

Register a private school

1. Overview

You will need to register your private school, courses offered and teachers permitted to teach if your school offers education for 10 or more persons. These include:

  • Tuition centres that teach subjects taught in mainstream schools.
  • Enrichment centres.
  • Language, music, dance and art schools that prepare students to attain an official certificate for their respective craft.

You will need to register with the Committee for Private Education (CPE) if your school:

  • Offers diploma or degree courses, or some form of post-secondary certification.
  • Offers full-time preparatory courses for entrance or placement tests to MOE mainstream schools, or for external examinations.
  • Offers full-time primary or secondary education that follows a foreign or international curriculum.
  • Is a privately-funded special education school.

Please note that an early childhood development centre (ECDC) is defined in the Early Childhood Development Centres Act 2017 (ECDC Act) as referring to any premises where the care and/or education, habitually of five or more children who are below seven years of age, is provided for a fee, reward or profit by a person who is not a relative or guardian of all of the children. If you are an operator of a childcare centre or preschool, refer to the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA).

Private schools registered under the Education Act should not be run as alternatives to ECDCs. It is a condition of registration that such private schools must not be conducted in a manner that render them registrable as ECDCs under the ECDC Act. We may direct you to apply to ECDA on the basis that the school you are proposing to register should be registered as an ECDC.

We may refer your school to ECDA if your school is found to be offering programmes that render it registrable as an ECDC, or to SSG if you are offering programmes that are considered full-time private education.

Changes to registration details

For registered schools, you will need to submit an amendment for the following changes:

Note: Registration with us does not mean we endorse or provide accreditation of the quality of your school, courses offered and teachers permitted to teach. It only gives private schools the right to operate when they have met the basic requirements. If you wish to indicate your school's registration status, you should only use the term “Registered with the Ministry of Education'.

Certificates you can issue

As a school, you may issue the following certificates to students:

  • Certificates for the successful completion of internal examinations or assessments conducted by your school.
  • Certificates for attendance or completion of the courses.
Note: We are not an accreditation authority on qualifications. Singapore does not have a central authority that recognises certificates, qualifications issued and courses of study offered by private schools. Recognition and acceptance of certificates for employment or further studies are entirely at the discretion of the individual prospective employer and academic institutions.
How to register