LATER STARTING TIME FOR SINGLE-SESSION PRIMARY SCHOOLS

LATER STARTING TIME FOR SINGLE-SESSION PRIMARY SCHOOLS

37.

Mr Calvin Cheng asked the Minister for Education whether single-session primary schools can start later in the morning so that young children can get more sleep.

Dr Ng Eng Hen: All schools, including single-session primary schools, have the flexibility to decide on their own start times. Such flexibility allows schools to take into account local conditions in their decisions. These local factors include the needs of their students and the programmes of the school, the impact of timetabling of PE lessons and of lessons stretching into the afternoons, the preferences of parents, school bus transportation arrangements and the traffic conditions around the school.

Public feedback on the start time for primary schools has been mixed. Some parents prefer a later start time while others prefer the current start time, which fits well into their daily routines. Concerns have also been raised on the possible challenges of arranging for school bus transportation with a later start time, including a rise in bus fares if school bus operators had to give up transporting factory workers due to the later start times of schools.

The question was also discussed during the deliberations of the Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee. After careful consideration, the Committee supported the current position of allowing each school to decide on its own start time.

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