There’s a lot of tension in the air.
Due to the shrinking number of students in Singapore, the Ministry Of Education (MOE) will enforce a merger of 28 schools. For the first time, this includes junior colleges, which will be reduced from 23 schools to 19.
MOE explained that the merging of schools was a result of Singapore’s declining birth rate, with expected intakes of 200 or 300 students for some JCs from 2019. This is about a quarter of the typical enrolment rate for a JC 1 cohort.
The Allocation
To minimise the disruption for students, Serangoon JC, Innova JC, Tampines JC and Jurong JC will not take in a fresh cohort of JC 1 students next year (2018), so that students will not have to physically relocate in their second year of JC.
MOE also said that teachers will not be retrenched as a result of the merger. Instead, affected teachers will be redeployed to other schools or to the MOE Headquarters.
According to MOE, the location, accessibility and quality of infrastructure were considered in the decision of which JCs and chosen locations. The names of the merged schools will be announced at a later date.
Let’s take a look at how our fellow Singaporeans feel:
Some are questioning the reason provided by the ministry, which is the decline in population size in recent years:
Instead of falling birth rates, some netizens suggest the preference for a polytechnic education to be the reason for smaller JC cohorts:
Others raise the case of newly-built Eunoia JC:
Some others provided an alternative solution to handle the declining number of JC students, such as having smaller class sizes:
However, MOE explained that a substantial student population is required for schools to offer a broader range of educational programmes and co-curricular activities, suggesting that smaller schools would be greatly limited.
While the Ministry has affirmed that students who qualify for JC curriculum will still be able to secure a spot, some netizens are not so convinced:
As expected, alumni of the JCs to be merged are concerned about the loss or dilution of school culture:
To address this concern, MOE said that there will be a dedicated heritage space at the merged schools to preserve the school’s history and heritage.
Interestingly, there are also people who have expected the merger, and seem to wholly accept it:
For now, most people seem to be pretty upset about the merging of schools, but we’ll keep a lookout for a change in perspective.
Cover Picture Credits: SRJC, AJC, IJC, YJC, TPJC, MJC, JJC, PJC