Three new special education schools to open by early 2030s
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The three new Sped schools will be located across the island for better geographical accessibility.
PHOTO: MINDS FERNVALE GARDENS SCHOOL
- MOE will open three new special education schools and expand existing ones by early 2030s, increasing capacity by 30% to serve 12,000 students.
- Parents Gateway will extend to all 26 Sped schools from mid-2026 to reduce administrative burdens, freeing teachers' time for better student outcomes.
- MPs urged a national framework for consistent Sped support across schools, competitive salaries, and lifelong learning models to address post-18 challenges.
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SINGAPORE – Three new special education (Sped) schools will be set up by the early 2030s, and existing schools will get additional or larger campuses from the second half of 2026.
Announcing plans to expand Sped school capacity, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Syed Harun Alhabsyi said on March 3 that the move will cater to the rising demand, driven by an increasing number of students diagnosed with autism with intellectual disability.
The first of the three new schools, to be run by APSN Education Services, will operate from the second half of 2026 in the northeast region, Dr Syed Harun said during the debate on the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) budget. By the early 2030s, schools will be able to serve a projected 12,000 students, up around 30 per cent from 9,000 currently.
The three new Sped schools will be located across the island for better geographical accessibility. The schools will be set up by APSN Education Services, Autism Association (Singapore) and St. Andrew’s Mission Hospital.
This will bring the number of Sped schools serving students with autism with intellectual disability from 13 to 16, and the total number of government and community-funded Sped schools from 26 to 30 by the early 2030s. This includes Pathlight School’s third campus, slated to move to the Punggol Digital District in 2032.
Dr Syed Harun said other efforts to set up permanent sites for existing Sped schools for various disability types, including Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore School (West), Grace Orchard School, and Maitri School, are ongoing.
MOE said students with autism now make up the largest profile among those with special educational needs. It noted that the quick increase in incidence rates of autism with intellectual disability is in line with global trends.
Three MINDS Sped schools will be expanded with additional campuses.
From the second half of 2026, the new campuses of MINDS Fernvale Gardens School and MINDS Lee Kong Chian Gardens School will operate from interim sites in eastern and central Singapore respectively.
From 2027, the additional second campus of MINDS Towner Gardens School will operate from an interim site in the east.
The fourth MINDS Sped school, Woodlands Gardens School, will relocate to a larger interim site in the north from 2027.
The exact locations of the campuses are not known yet. The schools will operate at these interim sites for at least five years, while MOE studies their longer-term infrastructure plans, including their permanent locations.
Education Minister Desmond Lee had said in September 2025 that the average time between the application date and the date a child is offered a place in a Sped school is six months.
“We want to make sure that there’s sufficient capacity and also timely placement of children, meaning that they can start school on time,” said MOE.
In a bid to extend digital solutions to Sped schools, Dr Syed Harun said the communication platform Parents Gateway, which gives parents access to school announcements and digital submissions of consent forms and medical certificates, will be extended to all 26 Sped schools from the second half of 2026.
The platform, which is meant to reduce administrative burden, has been well received in mainstream schools, he said.
Several MPs spoke earlier during the debate on March 2 on the challenges faced by students with special needs. Nominated MP Kenneth Poon proposed conducting screening of executive function at the Primary 1 level to assess pupils’ attention, working memory, and impulse control.
This screening would not diagnose or label pupils, but would provide objective data for early planning, including deploying more classroom support or adjusting class sizes.
Ms Denise Phua (Jalan Besar GRC) said parents still report differences in early identification, teacher confidence and consistency of support across schools, and there was need for a national framework to tackle this issue.
“Support should not depend on which school a child happens to enter,” she said.
She urged MOE to grow Sped school manpower with competitive salaries, sponsored training pipelines for Sped educators and allied professionals, and structured mid-career conversion pathways.
MOE should also allow for foreign manpower to supplement the workforce, and deploy multi-disciplinary teams to serve Sped school classes, she added.
Ms Phua also spoke about the “post-18 cliff”, referring to the lack of options for people with special needs past the age of 18 who have graduated from special education schools.
She said Sped schools should adopt a lifelong learning model, teaching students work readiness and life skills, and guiding them in their social emotional growth and community participation.
“No young person should thrive for years in our Sped schools to then face a drop into uncertainty,” she said.
