Alternative Pathways for Students Required to Leave School Before Completing National Certifications

10 Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Minister for Education in respect of students who are required to leave school before completing their national certifications, what alternative education, training or reintegration pathways does the Ministry provide to ensure they are not left without viable progression options.

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Mr David Neo) (for the Minister for Education): Sir, it is our goal for all Singaporeans to have education, training or reintegration pathways through life, regardless of when or how they left school.

And those who wish to continue their education may approach the school in which they were last enrolled. Alternatively, they can approach the Ministry of Education's Education and Career Guidance Centre for advice and guidance on suitable educational pathways. If they are assessed to be age-appropriate for re-admission, they can be enrolled at a secondary school. The receiving schools may assess these students and provide bridging programmes to smoothen their transition back into mainstream education.

While for students who prefer other education and training options, there are also alternative pathways. So, students with minimal academic qualifications can consider the Institute of Technical Education General Education programme, which allows adult learners to obtain their GCE "N" or "O" Levels. This, in turn, then allows them to subsequently enrol in Higher Nitec and Diploma programmes in our institutes of higher learning.

SkillsFuture Singapore also provides subsidies for a wide range of industry-relevant training programmes to meet the upskilling needs of Singaporeans throughout their careers, regardless of their education or academic qualifications.

Mr Speaker: Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

Ms Yeo Wan Ling (Punggol): Mr Speaker, I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. Could he also share whether there are plans to strengthen early identification and intervention for students at risk of leaving school prematurely, including closer coordination with family and community partners, so that support can be put in place earlier to help them remain engaged in education or to transition more smoothly?

I talk about this because I met up with a resident from Punggol, whose son was asked to leave school when he was in Secondary 3. And because of this, he was not able to get any certification. And I think after a year of trying very hard to get into another school, they were not able to do so, eventually, what they had to do is that they put the son in private tuition. Eventually, after a year, the school did accept him, but after that, he again got suspended.

While we are talking about upstream and low stream, the other thing is also whether or not, the Senior Minister of State could also clarify, if the Ministry tracks the outcomes of students who leave school before completing their national certifications, in particular, how many have successfully transited into alternative education, like the ones he had pointed out, training or employment pathways? And what additional support is provided to those who struggle to reintegrate?

I think at the end of it all, we just want to make sure that no student is left without a viable pathway.

Mr David Neo: Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for her supplementary questions. And indeed, it is our goal to make sure that all Singaporeans, all students have good pathways through life.

Ms Yeo spoke about early upstream intervention. Yes, indeed, we do early upstream intervention. We do it in schools. What we want to do is to strengthen at-risk students' engagement and a sense of certain connectedness to the school. In fact, once any of our students show any signs of disengagement, they are individually tracked and they are supported. Form teachers and school counsellors reach out to our students to understand and to address any of these challenges.

A lot of this, like the Member pointed out, could be issues at home and otherwise. And every effort is made to counsel and to dissuade these at-risk students from dropping out of school, including engaging their parents to provide a more holistic support.

Also, to strengthen at-risk students' motivation and a sense of connectedness to school, the Ministry of Education (MOE) also provides resources and guidance for schools to create a supportive school environment and also, provide a conducive after-school support for the students. This is usually done in collaboration with many community partners. Depending on their needs, students are also referred to school-based programmes where they can be engaged through befriending or mentoring by community partners and volunteers, as well as interest-based activities that build peer support and relationships, which can help improve their social emotional connectedness.

Schools also work very closely with community partners and Government agencies, such as the Ministry of Social and Family Development's ComLink+, self-help groups, social service agencies to provide some of these upstream wraparound support for the at-risk students. I am sure the Member, being a very good grassroots advisor, would also have some of these programmes for at-risk youths in her constituency, as I do have in Tampines as well.

There is a huge network of youth and social support programmes, but in broad, MOE focuses also on that wraparound support for our students, to make sure they have a holistic and also very importantly, a good home care environment, to prevent them from dropping out of school.

To the Member's question about tracking outcomes, today, MOE tracks outcomes of students. But once they are not in the school education system anymore, we do not track those further. But as part of our manpower statistics, as part of what SkillsFuture Singapore and Workforce Singapore are doing, we do have some of the other indicators. As a whole, I think what we do want to do is to make use of a combination of these indicators to make sure that we have all the appropriate programmes to help all Singaporeans continue to upgrade in life.