Parents: are international schools deteriorating?

[interested too]

The new law was passed on 21st Dec and does cover International schools as well. The woman I talked to directed me back to my school to check how they were responding to the change. She seemed unsure whether it should result in a refund or not. I'm waiting for my school to return with some answers.

[meixin]

Were can one find school results/scores? What are ways to compare international schools in Singapore?

[penniless schools]

Wonder which schools that rule applies to? My kids are at UWC, haven't heard anything at all about deposits being returned though I must say would be nice to have those many thousands back!!

We've got children in two schools, one in Eton House and one in Chatsworth.  It was Chatsworth who wrote to me, I've heard nothing from EH yet.

[are you sure?]

UWC's class size has gone up from 20 to 22. That's 10%. It might be 18 before.

my son has been at UWC for 5 years.  Class size has consistently been 22 in both Infants and Junior school.  However this year he has 23 in the class, as a teacher's child needed to be accommodated and the spaces had already been allocated - but we were assured this was an unusual situation.

[penniless schools]

just as an update, I've also read that Singapore are bringing in some kind of insurance for students that we are going to have to pay - I assume (but I don't know for sure) that this is because of those schools/colleges which closed down suddenly last year leaving students without an education facility and owing them thousands of dollars that they'd paid for their courses. 

You can find details on the CPE website - which is the council for private education, although I couldn't find any info about how much the insurance is going to cost.  Some schools may incorporate it into their fees but I believe that ours are going to charge it separately, so although we'll be getting our deposits returned, we'll have to pay extra for this.  I only hope it isn't too costly.

[lookingatinfo]

I found the press release which spoke about limiting collections of fees to 2 months or a purchasing fee insurance protection. I haven't seen any release about deposits.  I would assume that they would have to be held in an escrow account not with the schools. Given that the schools can't keep the money and use it, it would be useless to make people put this deposit into an escrow account if they have insurance.

I *think* well, I hope, they will have to give us our money back!!

[reader]

I've tried to find the articles about the insurances and deposits but can't find anything. Are you sure this applies to international schools and not just the privately run language schools etc?

[chatsworth]

   Received the letter from Chatsworth, we can get our deposits back, or apply the deposit to the August tuition.

[scarbowl]

http://www.cpe.gov.sg/ for information on parts of the new act.

As best I can tell, the act is still new and some schools have up to 18 months to comply.

more at:
http://www.business.gov.sg/EN/Industries/PrivateEducation/LawsNRegulations/RunningNOperatingYourPrivateEducationOrganisation/privateEdu_laws_foreignStudents.htm

[actuarly]

Pre-Tem Council for Private Education is a government committee I was advised to write too on the advice of my local embassy. I was told they are the ones that look at complaints about private schools. They are underthe Ministry of Education.

I am not sure what power they have.  I tried writing & calling them a while ago regarding matters of discrimination but only got recorded messages. Oh and no reply to my letter ever came.

[marriedguy]

To parents out there: Are there any quality standards that international schools need to adhere to? The school that my child goes to has continuously increased the number of students in elementary grades for the past couple of years, while no improvement in facilities, or more support for teachers. We have started to see a drop in quality of education. How to go about it?

thanks
 

If you are unhappy with the level of education they are getting then remove them to a school which you think has a better level of education.

[parentoftwo]

Would it be the right thing to do, to move kids to another school? I'd like to hear views of other parents.

I personally don't think so because kids have friends and some times strong relationships with classmates. One can't just move them. The school has responsibility to improve.  An escalation path (like ministry) would help to encourage the school to do the necessary improvements.

[scarbowl]

Moving your kids from one school to another isn't something to take lightly.  And you don't REALLY know what the other school is like until you've been there for a while.  Clearly it's easier if your kids are younger though mostly because they don't complain as loudly!

[measurement]

When a parent said that he sees a decline in quality of an increased enrollment of a couple of students in a short period, how is that measured?

[reddotparent]

That is in fact the question: would adding number of students in class (all classes across a grade) bring the quality of education lower? How does teacher/student ratio affect the quality?

I have seen some international schools that cap the number of students to 22. But I have also seen schools which have 26 students in a class and no confirmed cap.