7 special ed schools to gradually have new campuses from 2022
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Jolene Ang
Seven government-funded special education (Sped) schools will progressively begin operations on new campuses at permanent sites from 2022.
This is part of the Ministry of Education's (MOE) ongoing efforts to enhance accessibility to Sped for students with moderate to severe special educational needs.
Between 2017 and last year, the ministry had said it would work with social service agencies AWWA, the Autism Association Singapore, Rainbow Centre and Metta Welfare Association to set up four new Sped schools.
The aim was to address growing demand for places for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with intellectual impairment.
These four Sped schools - Eden School 2, AWWA School 2, Rainbow Centre School 3 and Metta School 2 - will begin operations at their permanent sites between 2022 and 2024.
MOE said the official names of these schools will be confirmed only at the time of school registration, before the schools move to their permanent sites.
Each school will provide 25 places per year and each will have an eventual total capacity for 300 students.
Collectively, they will provide up to 1,200 additional places.
In all, there will be six Sped schools catering to students who have ASD with intellectual impairment from next year.
The other two schools are Eden School and St Andrew's Autism School.
Last year, MOE also announced three new government-funded Sped schools to support students with moderate special educational needs who have ASD but can still access the national curriculum.
Two of the schools are Pathlight School 2 and Pathlight School 3, which are run by the Autism Resource Centre (Singapore).
Pathlight School 2 will provide 500 primary-level school places and 300 post-primary-level school places, while Pathlight School 3 will provide 500 primary and 400 post-primary-level school places.
The third school will be run by St Andrew's Mission Hospital. It was selected through a limited invitation for proposals approach that was open to eligible agencies.
This school will initially provide 75 places per cohort, but it will be able to provide 500 primary and 350 post-primary-level school places once it shifts to its permanent site in Clementi.
Along with Pathlight School 1, there will be four government-funded Sped schools that support such students with moderate special educational needs from 2022.
