Expatriates relocating from Hong Kong seeking school places in Singapore

Expatriates leaving HK are struggling to secure places for their children at Singapore’s top private schools. International schools across Singapore reported that they had received multiple times more inquiries than normal but were unable to meet the unprecedented demand.
Many international businesses are making plans to move staff from Hong Kong, where schools were closed again in January as the territory tightened restrictions. Companies including JPMorgan and Bank of America have considered relocations as border closures and tough quarantine measures make travelling from the city to meet clients almost impossible.

But growing waiting lists at Singapore’s schools are complicating those plans. “It is very, very tough. The market is incredibly hot,” said Daniel Beatty, Asia general manager for nutrition group Glanbia, who relocated from Hong Kong in September and is trying to secure a secondary school place for his son.

Singapore-based Tanglin Trust School, a non-profit with 2,800 students and annual fees of up to S$46,965 (US$34,600), received as many applications in January and February as during the whole of last year, according to Craig Considine, the chief executive.

For every one place at the junior school there were about 15 families interested, he said.

“Gaining a place in a good school is a big driver” for those considering whether to relocate, said Considine, adding parents may move somewhere elsewhere if they could not get their child into the right school.

The Canadian International School, which has about 3,200 pupils across two Singapore campuses and charges fees of up to S$41,700 a year, has already received about seven times more inquiries in 2022 than in the previous six months, according to head of communications Michelle Sharp. As many as 10 families are after every one place in the most oversubscribed year groups.

The Perse School Singapore is receiving as many as 30 inquiries a day, said Benyna Richards, the principal. But she said there was no waiting list after many expats left the city-state last year before it loosened its Covid-19 restrictions.

Anonymous

COE for degrees? A university degree may expire after 5 years?

  PAP MP Ang Wei Neng proposed in Parliament today that a “time stamp” be put on local university degrees which can be renewed by graduates as they attend upgrading courses every 5 years or so. And if they don’t, the degrees will ‘fade over time’.

Have you heard of anything more preposterous than this suggestion????

Is this supposed to be an advanced version of skillsfuture which the PAP are so desperate to promote??????

Now why should local graduates be discriminated against???? So a University Of Mumbai graduate does not have to go for upgrading courses but an NUS, NTU, SMU, SUSS graduate etc has to? What is the logic in that????

Does he mean that if the local graduate does not go for the upgrading course, he will no longer be considered a graduate in due course????? So the degree becomes ‘bo pa kei’ ?????....

Lim Tean 

Above is part of a post by Lim Tean in TRE.  I was kind of ah, ah, what is this? Refresher courses to keep the skill or knowledge or expertise up to date. They did this in some industries and if one does not attend refresher courses, the licence would not be renewed. If the knowledge and skills in some industries are turning topsy turvy, in some fields it makes sense. But in many fields, the knowledge and skills are basically the same, some may be for life. The only people benefiting from such upgrading or refresher courses would be the trainers. Other than that, most of the time it would be a waste of time, doing the same thing all over again as if it is something new.

What about university degrees getting expired after every 5 years, like COEs? Some technical courses may change quite a bit, but some courses that taught thinking skills don't vary much. New concepts may evolved but to demand compulsory refresher courses? And to pay for it again and again? KNN.

What about refresher courses for politicians?

As Lim Tean pointed out, is this only applicable to the handful of world class universities in Singapore, or only for Singaporeans or foreigners working in Singapore? If it is just for our world class university graduates, or for Singaporeans only, how would this impact their careers and job prospect? Get sacked or retrenched if no refresher courses, and foreigners happily taking over their jobs?

Even if the idea could be relevant in some fields, it has to be applied internationally or else Singaporeans mesti mati when made to compete with foreigners that did not have to go through this uniquely Singapore wise crack.

What do you think?

All doctors, lawyers, engineers etc etc must take refresher courses every 5 years or else degrees tak pa kai? Brilliant, simply brilliant.

Chicken rice stall, wantan mee, nasi lemak, satay stalls, all must go for refresher courses or else licence cannot renew?

This would be a very good topic for the Ah Peks in the kopitiams to talk cock and sing song when they have nothing better to do.

PS. How much would the refresher courses cost? If like COE, bee tang, huat ah! The poor graduates would have to pay and pay again. Another new normal from our super talent. See bay khiang. Deserves to be paid a few more millions in bonus. How many hundred thousands of graduates out there to pay for refresher courses?

Cannot called such idea as senseless or even stupid. It creates a lot of jobs and revenue.  Very good for the economy, especially a captured or controlled economy. 

And the universities in the whole world would also think this is a great idea and would adopt it for uniformity with Singapore so that Singaporeans would not lose out or look like a soh chai. 

Hhahahahahahahahah....oops, oops, why am I laughing?

I think this is all a joke. Or Lim Tean must have misquoted him. I cannot believe this is for real.

PS. In today's paper, Ang Wei Neng has apologised for this proposal.

Tree of Life NFT

 

The mysterious image of the Tree of Life revealed by Mother Nature as it is. This was captured by the camera for a brief moment in time and now can be seen with the naked eyes by the Art of RAR technique of photopainting. It is a very important image, and extremely rare. Never seen before by humankind. A very precious token for churches, priests, pastors, evangelists, believers, museums, scholars and collectors. Important: Only 20 limited copies would be minted. 

Tree of Life, has been painted many times for centuries by human beans based on their imagination and interpretation. This is the first time Mother Nature has painted this naturally, without the biases of human beans. Scholars and believers may want to contemplate and study the meaning and significance of this image. The images are very vivid. The lower images were less well formed as they emerged but got better as they moved up the tree. How could these happened naturally? The more you look at the painting the more you will discover the complexities in it.

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3 similar pieces are on offer at https://opensea.io/collection/rar-tree-of-life. This is a limited edition of 20 copies only. Not enough to satisfy the demands for such a mysterious and important painting. This is a gift from Mother Nature.