There are considerable benefits that extend from pre-school places to pre-secondary educational institutes.
The main benefits can be listed as below as:
- Affordable and quality pre-school education: The Govt. started with childcare, and introduces a new Partner Operator Scheme that’ll work with existing Anchor Operator Scheme to make sure that pre-school places are affordable along with qualifying in terms of quality. The scheme includes keeping the fees affordable and developing teaching levels of educators.
For example, a monthly fee of S$900 will reduce to S$500 after the student will receive S$400 subsidy. The scheme is further expected to yield benefits to households by cutting S$100 monthly. By 2020, this S$250 scheme is likely to benefit about 50 percent of pre-school children. - Account top ups for children aged six and below: The Child Development Account will receive top-up to help families pay pre-school fees. Under this top-up the families will get S$600. If a family doesn’t have CDAs, still it can open an account to receive the top-up. This S126 million top-up scheme will extend assistance to 230,000 children.
- Fees waived for nation examination from primary to pre-university: The fee for any Singaporean student, who is taking part in nation examinations like PSLE and GCE “N”, ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels, is waived. It’ll help families save up to S$900. This also applies to Singaporean students enrolled full-time in ITE and Polytechnics.
- MOE Financial Assistance Scheme boosted: Earlier, students under this scheme were relieved from paying school fees and standard miscellaneous fees along with free textbooks and uniforms. Now, the subsidy will be extended to public transport for students and school bus services. Each school will see increase in financial assistance over next three years in a hope to provide more resources to institute. The scheme includes special education Schools and self-help groups like the Chinese Development Assistance Council and Singapore Indian Development Association. The grant will be around S$6 million and is aimed at assisting these groups expand the scopes of their programs.
- Top-ups to Edusave Accounts for students aged seven to 16: As an annual contribution of up to S$240, an S$150 top-up will be given to students aged from seven to 16. It will be credited to their Edusave Accounts. Those above 16 years will get this top-up too. The schemes will assist around 400,000 students.
A top-up of S$20 or S$50 to Post-Secondary Education Accounts is announced for all Singaporeans that’ll help households save for tertiary education. It’ll benefit around 10,000 Singaporean students. Over the next three years, the Govt. expects to benefit students from primary to post secondary level.