Four junior colleges: Jurong JC, Serangoon JC, Tampines JC, and Innova JC, will be closed.

 

Is this the best solution?

 

The major argument in favor of keeping the JCs open is that smaller schools with smaller class sizes can give more individualized attention, and this is especially important in promoting learning and creativity. The conclusion is based on a massive amount of published research data:

https://www.classsizematters.org/research-and-links/

 

If closure of schools is not the optimum solution, then what are the alternatives?

 

1. Share the reduced enrolment across all 18 existing junior colleges. This comes to a reduction of about 180 students per junior college. Perhaps the larger ones like Raffles Institution which has an enrolment of over 3000 students can take the lion share of cuts?

 

2. Reduce class size.

 

3. Increase the number of full fee-paying international students. This will create more diversity in the student population and past experience has shown that international students often enliven schools and contribute to their many achievements.

 

4. Since some of the JCs are not too far from each other, one can consider pairing schools. Thus one may be able to allow JCs to focus on selected academic subjects, like certain languages. Those with specialized sports or theatre facilities can make them available to the paired school.

 

There are many more solutions, but it is disappointing that the announcement appears to have made like a fait accompli..

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Education is about our children's future. We should have more public debates about these issues.

​

Kenneth Lyen

20 April 2017

 

(The above are my personal views.)