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Source:
www.moe.gov.sg |
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Enhancing Our School
Infrastructure - Building of Six New Primary Schools and Prime
Phase 7 |
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As part of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE)
continuing efforts to renew and support our schools, we will be building new
schools as well as upgrading existing ones. |
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Six new primary schools will be built by 2008 and
twelve schools (6 primary and 6 secondary) will be upgraded under Phase 7 of
the Programme for Rebuilding and IMproving Existing Schools (PRIME). |
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These announcements were made by Mr Tharman
Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education, at Rosyth School’s 50th Anniversary
held on 16th April 2005. |
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New Primary Schools |
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As part of MOE’s continuing efforts to give more
resources to schools and provide teachers with more flexibility in trying
different teaching approaches for better teaching outcomes, a few initiatives
have been implemented. |
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This year, the Primary 1 class size has been
reduced from 40 to 30. Next year, this reduced class size will be further
implemented for Primary 2. |
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As earlier announced by Mr Chan Soo Sen, Minister
of State, at the 2005 Committee of Supply debate, MOE will also provide
greater infrastructural flexibility to schools by adjusting schools’ planned
enrolment to free up physical capacity. |
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Partial single sessions, where Primary 3 to
Primary 6 classes function in the morning, open up possibilities for better
teaching and learning by making more space and time available for teachers and
students. |
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Schools will have more facilities available in the
afternoon session for co-curricular activities and enrichment activities. In
2005, about 74% of our primary schools are already operating at partial single
session. |
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With these initiatives, schools will have a
smaller enrolment. MOE will thus build six new primary schools by 2008 to
support these initiatives whilst ensuring that all our children are assured of
places in school. Building of the six new schools will be done at an estimated
cost of $110 million. |
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The new primary schools will be located in the new
towns of Bukit Panjang, Punggol, Sembawang, Sengkang (two schools) and
Woodlands. The list of new primary schools can be found in
Annex A. |
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Currently, most of the primary schools in these
towns are operating with double sessions. The new schools will facilitate the
implementation of partial single session for the existing schools in these
towns. |
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PRIME Phase 7 |
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Twelve schools will be upgraded under PRIME Phase
7 from 2006-2008. They will have more classrooms and be fitted with new or
upgraded facilities including computer laboratories, media resource libraries,
IT learning resource rooms and pastoral care rooms. The list of schools under
PRIME Phase 7 can be found in
Annex B. |
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PRIME was launched in May 1999 to upgrade all
schools to the latest standards so as to provide a conducive learning
environment for our students. Estimated to cost $4.5 billion, this programme
is implemented in phases. To date, 210 schools have been included in the
earlier six phases of PRIME. Of these, 173 schools have completed their
redevelopment. |
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More information on PRIME can be obtained from the
PRIME website at
http://www/moe/gov/sg/prime/ or the MOE Customer Service Hotline at tel.
6872 2220 (during office hours). |
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More..... |
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Source:
Ministry of Education Press Release 16 Apr
2005 |
MOE to build six new primary schools by 2008
