No plans to 'proactively' convert single-sex schools, but new schools are co-ed as they cater to community's needs: MOE

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Education (MOE) does not have a preference for single-sex or co-ed schools, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said on Tuesday (Feb 28), but that in general, new schools opened by MOE are co-ed because such schools are able to meet the schooling needs for both sexes in the community.

"In general, all our new schools that MOE opens are co-ed, as is the case of schools opening in recent years in Punggol and those slated to be opened in Tengah," Mr Chan said.

"This is to ensure that these new schools meet a local demand for school places for both boys and girls, especially since home-school proximity is an important consideration at the primary school level."

He was responding to questions in Parliament regarding the recent move to relocate Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) 12km away to the Tengah estate in 2030. ACS (Primary), which is presently a boys' school, will also be converted to a co-ed school that takes in girls. 

The move to relocate ACS (Primary) from its current site on Barker Road had sparked concern among some ACS alumni, who had concerns about the new site's "faraway" location, as well as the inclusion of girls in the school's future cohorts. 

CO-ED SCHOOLS 'BETTER MEET COMMUNITY NEEDS'

In Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Yip Hong Weng, Member of Parliament (MP) for Yio Chu Kang, asked a question on whether MOE will be establishing more single-sex schools to introduce "more options in the education landscape".

Mr Chan said that MOE does not have a preference for single-sex or co-ed schools, and it is due to the individual histories of each school that led to why a school ended up the way it is.

However, all new schools that MOE opens are co-ed because opening a single-sex school would increase the chances of an imbalance in school places for boys and girls in the community, he added.

For example, if there were three schools in a new town, all three being co-ed will mean that there are spots for an equal number of boys and girls. 

"But if one of the schools is not co-ed and is a single sex school, then mathematically, what it means is that for the other two remaining schools, chances are that we'll have an imbalance between the boys and girls."

In such an example, MOE prefers the schools to be co-ed because "that would better meet the local community needs", Mr Chan said.

MOE does not have a plan to proactively convert existing single-gender schools to co-ed schools, though there had been several cases over the decades in which a single-sex school became a co-ed one. 

These included Canossa Catholic Primary School, Geylang Methodist School (Primary) and Fairfield Methodist School (Primary). 

ON MAKING DECISIONS FOR FUTURE STAKEHOLDERS

As for ACS (Primary), Mr Chan said that the ACS board of governors had discussed with MOE on a possible move of one of their two primary schools in the Bukit Timah area to the heartland to "serve a different community and to inject more diversity into their student profile".

"In the course of these discussions, MOE offered a Tengah school site to the board, but explained that it will not be tenable for the school not to take in girls at the Tengah location, because that would constrain school options for families in the area," Mr Chan added. 

"MOE was glad that the ACS board was open to this request and subsequently, it informed MOE that ACS (Primary) would be the relocating school." 

Responding to another question by Aljunied Group Representation Constituency MP Gerald Giam on whether MOE had consulted current and future stakeholders on the relocation, Mr Chan noted that many of the residents who will enrol their children in the new school site have likely not moved into Tengah yet. 

This inability to consult future stakeholders remain one of the biggest challenges faced by MOE when it came to opening new schools, he said.

"But having said that, that is where leadership comes in from both MOE and the ACS board, which is that we have to protect not just the needs of the current generation, but also the needs of the future generation."