Announcements made by the Ministry of Education (MOE) earlier this month shares on revisions in the education system. Below are key highlights at a glance. 1. Primary Schools
- Higher Edusave contributions from 2019 onwards. Primary school students will receive $230 annually, a 15% increase from the current $200.
- Currently, more than 80 primary schools offer Applied Leaning Programmes (ALP). By 2023, all primary school students will undergo ALP.
- The income criterion for Edusave Merit Bursary (EMB) will be raised from a monthly Gross Household Income of $6000 to $6,900 or PCI of $1,725 from $1,500.
2. Secondary Schools
- Secondary school students will receive an Edusave contribution of $290 annually, a 20% increase from the current $240.
- By 2019, more than 50 schools will offer Applied Subjects at the O-Level, and 30 schools will offer MOE-ITE Applied Subjects at the N(T)-Level.
- The eligibility criteria for the Polytechnic Foundation Programme (PFP) will be extended to students with N-Levels ELMAB3 aggregate score of 12 points and below, starting from the 2019 PFP intake, up from 11 points and below currently
3. Polytechnics
- Polytechnics will streamline the number of courses they offer. Over the next 2 – 3 years, MOE will work with the polytechnics to reduce the number of courses by around 20% .
- Polytechnics will introduce more Common Engineering Programme (CEP) in the Business, and Information & Digital Technologies (IDT) clusters from Academic Year (AY) 2019 onwards. CEP enables students to acquire engineering fundamentals that are common to a wide range of disciplines. This helps Poly students make a well-informed decision on preferred field of specialisation.
4. ITEs
- ITE will review its admission system to place greater emphasis on the assessment of students’ skills and demonstrated aptitude. The aptitude-based assessment will be expanded to more courses in the Joint Intake Exercise, from AY2019, starting with selected Nitec courses in Business, Hospitality, and Information and Communications Technology.
- From 2018, 4 inaugural ITE Work-Learn Technical Diploma (WLTD) will be offered, with 190 training places across 41 companies.
More information can be found in MOE’s website.