ITE Students Eligible for Financial Assistance

Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked the Minister for Education (a) how many ITE students are currently eligible for financial assistance; (b) how many of these eligible students have applied for assistance; and (c) how does ITE publicise the assistance schemes so that eligible students do not miss it.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, we want to provide quality and affordable education to all Singaporeans regardless of their financial circumstances. For higher education, there is significant subsidies at all levels. Specifically, ITE course fees are funded at over 90% subsidy. In addition, the Government provides a range of financial assistance schemes (FAS) for students who need further assistance.

MOE's financial assistance schemes are designed to support up to two-thirds of our students. In Academic Year 2016, over 70% of students at ITE received some form of financial aid or scholarships, such as the CDC/CCC Bursary and the MOE Bursary. There are also merit-based scholarships that similarly defray students' fees and school-related expenses, as well as other financial assistance schemes offered by foundations, Self-Help Groups, and other community or private organisations.

ITE has been increasing its outreach efforts to encourage and assist needy students to apply for the various FAS. These efforts include (i) sharing information on FAS widely via ITE's website, Facebook, student handbook, student portals and through booths and briefings during orientation; (ii) proactively reaching out to students who were previously on FAS in Secondary school, and those who had indicated potential of requiring assistance, and prompting them to apply for FAS. In addition, its Class Advisors will also keep an active lookout for students who may need help in the course of the school year.

Mr Saktiandi Supaat (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the answers. I have two supplementary questions for him. The first question is: in terms of the numbers that he shared, 90% of subsidies given out to students in ITE, what percentiles are we targeting here in terms of the income levels? The second question is: what more can we do potentially for the ITE students who need help? The Senior Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that Ministry briefs those Secondary schools earlier for those going into ITE. And what more can we do to help? Going forward, how are we going to communicate more to the students? For example, in Toa Payoh East-Novena, for example, I do see repeatedly some students and their parents coming to see me, not being aware of some of the assistance that are available to them in school, including the ECG and also in terms of other financial assistance that they may need help from.

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Sir, I thank the Member for the supplementary question. I mentioned in my speech earlier that over 70% of the students receive some form of financial help and this is different from the 90% subsidy that we give to ITE students. So, 70% is very close to our intended coverage of Government bursaries for Singapore citizens where we would like to cover up to 66 percentile of the household by income. So, we want to not only help the low income but also the middle income.

We will continue to enhance our effort in reaching out to the students and we will continue to look at the processes and how we can streamline. One good example of how we are going to streamline is that we have this MOE ComCare Shared Assessment where the students in ITE whose families are already on ComCare assistance, when they are being assessed for ComCare assistance, we will also look at the eligibility of the students for Government bursaries at ITE, so that they do not have to fill up the form twice or take up the approach again. So, in this way, we will be able to streamline it, make it easier for them. This is expected to take place or to start second half of this year.