Revising Start Time for Schools

5 Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim asked the Minister for Education whether there are plans to re-evaluate school start times, especially with most schools currently operating in single-session mode.

6 Miss Cheng Li Hui asked the Minister for Education in light that fewer than 15% of Secondary school students get enough of the recommended daily eight hours of sleep and experts on children and sleep advocate starting school no earlier than 8.30 am, whether there are plans to revise the starting time for all Primary, Secondary and pre-tertiary schools to later than 8.30 am.

The Minister of State for Education (Ms Sun Xueling) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, with your permission, I would like to take Question Nos 5 and 6 together.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Yes, please.

Ms Sun Xueling: International research has established that amount and quality of sleep is influenced by multiple factors, such as circadian rhythm, exercise and sleep habits. The Ministry of Education (MOE) has also recently commissioned two research studies on the impact of factors affecting sleep duration and quality of our students in Singapore. This will help us better understand how later school start times could contribute to students’ longer sleep duration.

Currently, schools start no earlier than 7.30 am. Schools have the autonomy to adopt a later school start time, taking into consideration factors such as parents’ feedback, school end time, impact on after-school and inter-school programmes, transport provisions and traffic situation around the schools.

MOE will consider the results of the local and overseas research. Apart from whether school start time should be delayed, we will need to work with parents to improve sleep hygiene, manage the overall load on students as well as their use of digital devices.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): I thank the Minister of State for her response. I have a quick follow-up question. I wonder if MOE would consider if the idea of a wholesale change in start time is impossible; whether staggered start times just for Primary 3 onwards or for secondary school only is possible.

Part of the motivation behind this is we understand that pre-puberty circadian rhythms do predispose children to sleep around 8.00 pm or 9.00 pm, but after the onset of puberty, which is typically around 10 or 11 years for girls and four years later for boys, pre-adolescents experience sleep-phase delay of about two hours. It is entirely possible that just a half-an-hour or an hour's delay, which I think will actually not be very disruptive to traffic situations as well as schedules, will make a significant difference, as a July 2019 Straits Times article suggests.

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his suggestion. I think, right now, because of our safe management measures, schools have already implemented staggered start and end times. I had earlier mentioned that MOE had contracted two research studies. We will be looking into the results of those studies to better inform us as to how we can implement more wholesale guidance to schools on start and end times.

To share more, the two related projects will help us better understand how the complex issues related to our adolescents' sleep patterns and time use can be addressed comprehensively.

Mr Lim Biow Chuan (Mountbatten): May I ask the Minister of State, in light of the Parliamentary Question from Miss Cheng Li Hui, whether the schools would want to encourage parents to get their children to sleep early? I recall that when my kids were young, I used to tell them to sleep early so that they would be able to have more sleep and to wake up early to be able to go to school without having problems.

So, instead of getting school to start later, would we not consider asking children to sleep earlier to get their quota of available sleep?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member Mr Lim Biow Chuan for the question. Indeed, he has raised a very important point, which is that delaying school start time may not translate directly into gain in students' sleep duration.

He mentioned good sleeping habits. Indeed, they matter. They are an important factor. A local study by Prof Michael Chee in 2016 showed that a 45-minute delay in school start time resulted in a 10-minute increase in sleep time for students from one school in Singapore. An overseas study in Seattle, 2018, reported an additional 34 minutes of sleep when school started later by nearly an hour.

That is why we have commissioned the two studies to understand the topic better. Mr Lim Biow Chuan has mentioned a very important point, which is that we need to work closely with parents so that the students have good sleeping habits, good sleep hygiene. I had mentioned the use of social media devices in my main reply. These are all factors that we need to consider as we think about how to better improve sleep quality for our students.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Leon Perera.

Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): I thank the Minister of State for the answer. Just one supplementary question. I think in previous discussions of this issue of school start times, one consideration that was brought to bear was the possibility of traffic congestion. So, if children are going to school either by school bus, public bus or car at 8.30 am or thereabouts, that might create a lot of congestion because office workers are going to work as well.

But will the Government also consider that with the trend towards working from home, flexible work and so on, which may persist beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, that is an issue that may be much less of a concern and that could be a factor for encouraging an across-the-board later start time?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his question. Indeed, I think the factors he had raised have been raised recently in a Straits Times article. MOE will consider these factors holistically. As I mentioned in my main reply, MOE would take into consideration parents' feedback; we will look at the impact on after-school and inter-school programmes and also transport provisions and traffic conditions around the schools. So, I thank the Member for his suggestion.