THE first group of private schools will be registered under the new Private Education Bill by the fourth quarter of this year and they will be followed by other eligible ones which will be given 18 months to put their names down.

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen gave this update in Parliament on Monday in response to Nominated MP Kalyani Mehta's questions on when the new academic accreditaion scheme for private schools will take effect.

Plans for Singapore to become a hub for private schools have been hampered in recent years by news of several private schools which shut down suddenly, complaints about poorly qualified teachers, unsatisfactory teaching materials and programmes of dubious value.

Dr Eng said the new bill, to be introduced in Parliament in the second half year, will be a 'step-up' from the current regulatory schemes for private education industry.

The bill requires more than 1,000 private schools here to meet a list of criteria before they can register with the Ministry of Education.

These include showing that they have proper systems, such as independent academic and examination boards to develop and review academic policies; giving information on their finances, teachers and facilities; and ensuring that foreign institutions they link with are up to par.

Schools taking in foreign students face stricter rules and will have to get a new EduTrust mark, which replaces the current CaseTrust one.

The ministry will look at areas such as school's corporate governance, management responsibilities, curriculum design and student protection programmes before awarding the mark.

Schools will also be assessed in areas not covered by CaseTrust like financial management, curriculum design and development and student satisfaction.

Sidebar

Strategies to address bogus teachers

On new strategies to address the problem of bogus private school teachers, Dr Ng Eng Hen said the new regulatory regime will see to it in three ways.

Firstly, MOE will stipulate that teachers have to possess authentic educational qualification of at least one level above the programme they are teaching. Officers from the new Council of Private Education, which will be administering the new framework, will check the teachers' qualifications during on-site inspections.

If the teachers are found to not have met requirements, the Council will require that they not be allowed to teach. If fales information has been provided, private schools will be guilty of an offence under the new regime.

Thirdly, private schools which apply for the EduTrust certification will be assessed on how academic stuaff are recruited, deployed and monitored to ensure teaching quality.