Inclusive Education for All Special Needs Singaporeans

Inclusive Education for All Special Needs Singaporeans

There is a need for all Singaporeans to be educated, under a common core education to prepare for a knowledge-based economy, as well as having a common educational experience to build forging national identity and cohesion. (Ministry of Education website)

Some Singaporeans are not covered under the Compulsory Education Act. He (or she) could have been exempted from compulsory education, especially for children studying in some private primary schools (designated schools in MOE terms, such as San Yu Adventist School) and homeschools. Granted, these students also study for the Primary School Leaving Examination and go through the National Education test. They also fit into the aims and objectives of ‘a common education experience for national cohesion’ in their unique manner, and receive a ‘common core education’. So they also receive a uniquely Singaporean education.

Some Singaporeans, though, do not have the chance to get to national schools or even the designated schools. They are deemed to have physical and intellectual disabilities. Few national schools can cater for them, due to a lack of facilities. Perhaps most importantly, though, most Singaporeans with physical and intellectual disabilities could only receive an education in special schools that are not funded by the Ministry of Education. In other words, special education in Singapore is not under the purview of the Ministry of Education, the provider of education to 99% of all Singaporeans, from a parliamentary reply by the current Minister of Education Heng Swee Keat on March 8 2012.

Are we going to forge national identity together without the people with disabilities and special needs (PDSNs)?

Granted, they have a different core education to receive from the rest. This is why they are in their special schools in the first place. However, note at why these special schools are not under the compulsory education structure – because they do not fit under the government’s stated policies of a common core education for the knowledge-based economy.

I just want to know whether this affects society’s reactions towards them, as part of our society.

These special needs people are presumably native-born or born to native-born Singaporeans. Every year, perhaps about two, or three hundred of them, who are males, will receive the notification that they will be exempted from National Service (NS). Given the pro-NS culture and the lack of common educational experience with the mainstream society, is it really possible that these special needs Singaporeans are part of our society? Will they be seen as a group of people who have Singaporean citizenship, but are regarded as people whom we try our best to forget and be abandoned in a corner? Don’t they have their pink Identification Cards when they are older?

We need to send a strong message to all Singaporeans. We need to tell all of our people, all Singaporeans are uniquely Singaporean, with our common Singaporean experience. We are one whole nation united by our common destiny, for our land.

To bring the common experience, we do our best to make sure all Singaporeans are in the same governmental supervision for all students. The agency responsible for 99% of Singaporeans’ education is supervised by the Ministry of Education (MOE). It is only natural for the special needs community to ask the MOE to include the 1% of the students, current not under its purview due to them enrolling in special needs schools, to be under their purview. This can be done with input from the Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports, with their Community Chest funding.

The integration of special needs schools with MOE may not be smooth. Special needs students do not seem to have a common core with the rest of the students in mainstream settings, as they do not need to take the Primary School Leaving Examination. They do not seem to go to National Education trips. They also do not have the capacity to, intrinsically from their behaviors, to feel themselves being part of Singapore. This had been the reason why MOE had been reluctant to bring these people of uniquely different needs separate from the rest of the student population.

However, MOE should signal its students that some things are more important than just reading, writing and other skills for the economy. The perception of cohesion for all Singaporeans is one. Although the special needs students are not part of the mainstream society, they are, after all, part of our society. Under common management of all special needs education in Singapore, including the management of special schools, inclusive education, integrating special needs resources for students with special needs in a mainstream setting, could be more likely achieved for the Singapore education system.

This would bring success for students with special needs as a whole. From an UNICEF report on special education, inclusive education group was found to have “achieved significantly higher levels on a number of academic measures and equivalent scores on others without special needs.”  The children included in the mainstream classroom also had better attendance records than those who are not included in mainstream classrooms, from a study by Geoff Lindsay, done in 1997. This shows that inclusion is not only beneficial in terms of achieving higher academic results for all students in general, but also better for the societal outcomes, which is deemed to be more fair, and have more altruism throughout society.

In my opinion, Singapore is better off having a centralized management of education. I think the Government should extend provision of compulsory education to special needs students, as well as central management of all educational services, will bring benefits to Singapore in the long run. Compulsory education for all Singaporeans is the way forward for Singapore.