CHINESE-MEDIUM SCHOOL IN TAMPINES ROAD

Mr Tee Kim Leng asked the Minister for Education whether and when the Government will build a Chinese-medium school in Tampines Road.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: Mr Speaker, Sir, it is the policy of Government to build schools to meet the demand for places as far as possible, provided suitable sites can be obtained and at reasonable cost.

In the case of Tampines Road, which is more than 7 miles long, there are at present 11 Primary schools serving this area. Of these, 9 are Government Aided Chinese schools with 82 classes and total enrolment of 2,873 pupils. It would seem that these 9 schools are more than adequate to serve the needs of Chinese primary classes in this area, when judged by the registration for Primary I classes for 1964 which was completed recently. Although these schools could admit 808 pupils next year, only 404 or 50 per cent of capacity have registered for admission.

When the Prime Minister visited Tampines constituency in February this year, 4 petitions were -

3.00 p.m. Committee of Supply. Later -

3.15 p.m.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: As I was saying, Mr Speaker. Sir, when the Prime Minister visited Tampines Constituency in February this year, four petitions were received for the building of a Government Chinese secondary school in the Tampines area. A survey was immediately conducted by the Ministry. Again it would seem that the Tampines area is reasonably served by no less than five Chinese secondary schools in the neighbouring Upper Serangoon area, namely, the Hai Sing Girls' High School at 7¼ m.s. (483 Upper Serangoon Road), the school just opposite the Holy Innocents High School; the Sin Min High School -

Mr David Marshall: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, Sir.

Mr Speaker: Point of order.

Mr David Marshall: The point of order being this: it is a very simple question and whether it is permissible that statements of such verbosity be permitted at Question Time.

Mr Speaker: The general rule is that answers should be as short as possible. Of course, there is nothing to prevent a Minister from elaborating on what he has to say. The general parliamentary practice is that if the answer tends to be long, the Minister could say that he will make a Ministerial statement after Questions. But I have allowed rather lengthy statements in answer to Questions, for the simple reason that we have not had so very many questions on our Order Papers. Perhaps Ministers will bear in mind in future that if their statements are lengthy, they could easily make Ministerial statements at the end of Question Time. Mr Yong may continue.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: I shall gloss over the details, Sir, and just say that there are five Chinese secondary schools in the neighbouring Upper Serangoon area. On the south side there are another three Chinese secondary schools within reasonable distance from Tampines.

However, Government has decided to acquire two pieces of land, one of four acres at 10 m.s. Upper Changi Road, and the other over three acres at 7½ m.s. Upper East Coast Road. The land acquisition notices of these lands were published in the Government Gazette Notifications No. 609 dated 22nd March, 1963, and No. 1088 dated 17th May, 1963, respectively. It is planned to build three integrated schools (one primary and two secondary) at these sites to serve both the Changi and Tampines areas.