Friday, June 17, 2011

One more private school closed by CPE

CPE, the Council for Private Education was set up by the govt to regulate private schools in Singapore after a spate of unpleasant events which led to private students being left in the lurch when some of the badly run schools run foul of the law or were closed prematurely.

ALG Education Centre located in the private schools district of North Bridge Road and Middle Road area was closed for failing to disclosed relevant information affecting the school. The school withheld information that its partnership with an external degree programme provider, New York's Daeman College, was terminated. ALG also did not submit student records and contracts to CPE as required for registration as a private school. There were also two civil proceedings against ALG that was not reported.

Private schools are required to be registered with CPE and to satisfy certain requirements for accreditation under the Enhanced Registration Framework which required them to have independent examination boards, transparency of finances and qualified teachers. Schools that want to recruit foreign students are required to obtain the EduTrust Certificate which has more stringent criteria to meet.

As of end of April 2011, 274 private schools have been registerd with ERF and 63 awarded the EduTrust Certificates. Foreign students seeking further education in private schools here should enquire for such qualifications from the private schools for their own good. The Private Education Act enacted in December 2009 required all private schools to be registered with the CPE. This should provide the first level of safeguards for foreign students studying in Singapore.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

An aberration in the education of Indians

Sinda is concerned that one in four Indian students scored less than a C grade in PSLE examination. They are reviewing the teaching methods to correct this anomaly.

I think they should not be unduly alarmed by the slightly underperformance at primary level. From the performance of adult Indians, the reverse is true, that Indians are great in mathematics and numbers. They are producing a lot of world class programmers and IT professionals in a field where mathematics and logical thinking are a must. Then all the top finance professionals in the island are Indians, from the Finance Minister, CEO of MAS, CEO of DBS, Citigroup and many other finance institutions are Indians. Their ability for mathematics cannot be bad.

What this proof is that the Indians may be slower in developing their mathematical prowess. But they will catch up in no time to be the best of the best. There is not much cause to worry about. They will all end up well and surpass the national average. Unless of course the gene pool has been changed or degraded. This is unlikely to be so as Tharman has noted, ‘the Indian community had made “significant progress” in the past 20 years,….’ They can only get better.