Saturday, October 23, 2010

The heat is on private schools

By June 2011, more than 50% of private schools would have to close down. The spate of closures and badly run private schools have damaged the clinically clean image of Singapore as a no nonsense city state where quality is its hallmark. The Singapore Trademark is as good as gold. So it was till it was tarnished by the problems caused by failed private schools and the torment and pain it caused to the students, both local and foreign, who paid good money and invested time and effort only to be at the wrong end of a scam.

The Education Ministry has finally kicked in to clean up the mess. A Council for Private Education(CPE) has been set up to evaluate private schools and those not up to mark will have to go to protect the interest of the students and Singapore's squeaky clean reputation.

Private schools meeting the stringent criteria will be accreditted with the EduTrust Award. At the top is the EduTrust Star. Those who got through would be given the EduTrust Award. The minumum standard is the EduTrust Provisional Award.

Private students should look out for this accreditation before enrolling to any private schools. This is the least they should look out for and the least that the Ministry could do.

Going forward we will have to see if the new rulings come with teeth or things as per normal with poorly managed private schools still operating and closing like the weather.

2 comments:

stephanie said...

Edutrust if improved quality of teaching is called added value to all but if it increased paper work to staff and teachers is called redundancy and waste of time and money

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

The ministry is trying hard to protect the interests of students. Hope it does not become another unnecessary work. But the intention is good.