Private Education Act

Over the past few years, a number of private schools in Singapore had closed suddenly stranding students midway through their studies. Worse, the owners of these schools refused to pay back the school fees paid by the students.

Under pressure to maintain Singapore’s reputation as an education hub, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Council for Private Education (CPE) enacted the Private Education Act to monitor and control private schools in Singapore. After 2 fruitless years, the Act has finally had some affect.

Stricter rules under the Act have currently caused over 600 private schools in Singapore to shut their doors. This is almost two-thirds of the private schools in Singapore! Now there will be some people who say the CPE has went overboard with cleaning up the bad schools but I’m not one of them.

I fully approve the tough actions of the CPE and believe it should be maintained. In recent years, there had been many schools run by people whose sole motivation has been money. When two-thirds of the private schools in Singapore had to close because they were unable to meet the criteria of the Private Education Act, it tell me a lot about how well-run these schools are and how many bad schools there are in Singapore.

To people who feel sorry for the operators; please note that the CPE had given the private schools 18 months to meet the new requirements of the Private Education Act. They were given a chance, but they either fail or could not be bothered. No blame can be attached to the CPE or MOE on this. No one can say they don’t have enough time to meet the requirements.