Children from lower-income families would bear heavier burden if schools were to close: PM Lee

SINGAPORE —  If schools are closed, children from lower-income families would bear the heavier burden of the tighter restrictions, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a media interview on Friday (March 27).

Mr Lee, who was speaking to Singapore's media outlets at the Istana on the Resilience Budget and the Covid-19 pandemic, also revealed that the Ministry of Education had found that long-term absenteeism rates in schools have already crept up during the outbreak.

A transcript of the interview with CNA, Channel 8, The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao was provided to all media on Friday.

Responding to a question from CNA on the long-term impact of the pandemic on lower-income households, Mr Lee said that Singapore has always geared its household assistance towards this group by putting more resources into ComCare, social work agencies and the community. This ensures that help from the Government will go to those who need it most.

ComCare is a programme under the Ministry of Social and Family Development.

Mr Lee then addressed the possibility of school closures, a hotly discussed topic by online users ever since news emerged this week of two new clusters at the PAP Community Foundation Sparkletots preschool at Fengshan in Bedok North and the Dover Court International School. Most of the confirmed cases so far have been staff members and parents.

He said that schools serve a vital role in the Covid-19 crisis. “Because school is not just going to school and attending class and (then) come home. It is also a place where you socialise, where you mix, where the teachers guide you, where you get the enrichment classes,” Mr Lee said.

“That is how we level up our kids and make sure that the people from less advantaged families are well taken care of and have a chance to level up.”

Once that enrichment stops and with teachers and parents unable to compensate for that lost time, “the kid is going to be put at a disadvantage”, he added.

Mr Lee said this is one reason why the Government is carefully mulling the closure of schools, whenever members of the public ask why Singapore has not closed schools in the way that some other nations have done.

A female student, who was taking her O-Levels this year, had penned an essay addressed to Mr Lee urging for school closures to “solve this problem”.

Mr Lee explained to the student that schools can be safe places that provide an important service which would aid both parents and students.

Said Mr Lee: “If you do not have (the schools) open, it does not mean that your problem has gone away, because where do the kids go? Those who have parents who can look after them at home — well, okay they ‘guai guai’ (Mandarin for ‘obediently’) sit at home, do homework, no computer games.”

But those without parental care at home may head to the video arcade or to the shops to roam around, thus placing them at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 than if they had remained in a controlled school environment, he added.

Referring to the recent clusters occurring at PCF Fengshan and Dover Court International School, Mr Lee said that the Government is watching developments “very carefully”.

“But I think we should look at schools as individual schools rather than one whole system. Just as we look at workplaces as individual workplaces, rather than one whole work system, and if a workplace has a problem, we deal with that. We confine and we rub out that cluster, but it does not mean that I must shut the whole system down,” Mr Lee said.