Students to receive exam fee waivers, top-ups to education accounts
SINGAPORE — Singaporean students will no longer have to pay fees for national examinations, while several education-related accounts will receive top-ups so that parents can breathe easier when it comes to their children’s education costs.
The fee waiver applies to those in Government-funded schools and is for every national examination, from the Primary School Leaving Examination to the ‘A’ Levels, said Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam as he outlined various moves in his Budget speech yesterday to support families with children. In total, these savings can amount to S$900 from primary school to pre-university, he said.
Full-time Singaporean students in polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) will also pay no examination fees, he added.
Apart from the waiver, Mr Tharman also announced top-ups to various education accounts to ease the cost of schooling at every level.
For Singaporean children up to six years old this year, the Government will give S$300 or S$600 in each of their Child Development Accounts, depending on the annual value of their homes. The higher amount, which the majority of 230,000 eligible children will get, is enough to pay for more than a month of childcare costs after subsidies for a middle-income household, said Mr Tharman.
Students between the ages of seven and 16 (about 400,000) will get an extra S$150 in their Edusave Accounts on top of the annual contribution of up to S$240 they currently receive. Those who are older than 16 but still in secondary school will also get the top-up.
For tertiary students aged 17 to 20, S$250 or S$500 will be added to their Post-Secondary Education Account, depending on the annual value of their homes. The majority of the 160,000 students who stand to benefit will get the higher amount, said Mr Tharman, which can cover more than one year of course fees at ITE, for instance.
All in, these measures will cost about S$250 million over the next three years, he added.
While parents generally welcomed the news, they said more help can be given in other areas.
Madam Siti, who comes from a middle income family and is a mother of five, said she would have to spend about S$300 on two of her children’s examination fees next year, if not for the waiver.
Mrs Vanessa Lee, who has four sons, lauded the initiatives “because every cent counts”, but wished for more help for children with learning disabilities. Three of her sons suffer from conditions such as dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), said the housewife, who spends about S$700 on each child’s medication every three months, after government subsidies.
“They cannot go without the medication; otherwise, they cannot focus,” she said.
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Other documents on Budget 2015 available on the Budget 2015 website.
