CHILDREN OF SCHOOL-GOING AGE (Number who did not attend school)

Mr Low Thia Khiang asked the Minister for Education how many children of school-going age did not attend school from 1990 to 1993.

The Minister for Education (Mr Lee Yock Suan): Mr Speaker, Sir, the numbers of children who reached school-going age in 1990 to 1993 but did not register to attend any school in Singapore are as follows: Year of attending Number of children who Primary One classes did not attend Singapore school 1990 80 1991 243 1992 366 1993 347

These figures include children who are living with their parents overseas. These parents could be working overseas or they might have emigrated but not changed their citizenship status yet.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Could the Minister elaborate, of these numbers, how many are actually students whose parents have emigrated or living overseas, or students whose parents are still residing in Singapore but fail to send their children to school?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Mr Speaker, Sir, we do not know the actual breakdown of this number. I suspect that most of these children are living overseas with their parents. Either the parents are working overseas or they have migrated. We do not have the actual figures, but I suspect that the number of parents who have omitted to register their children in school is extremely small.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, it is no good for the Minister to say that he suspects. Will the Ministry concerned implement a system whereby there is a way to track parents who are residing in Singapore but fail to send their children to school?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Mr Speaker, Sir, my Ministry can look into this suggestion.

Encik Ibrahim Bin Othman (Thomson GRC): Sir, apart from the children following their parents overseas, what are the other reasons for these children not going to school? What plans does the Ministry have to encourage parents to send their children to school?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Sir, as I have said, I think most of these children are actually overseas. We do not know for sure, because we have no tracking system. But we will study whether there is some way that we can try and find out who these parents are from the records of births and deaths and from records of children who have registered in our schools. This will require some study.

Under our situation where most parents know the value of education, I think there is probably only a handful of children who have not registered in schools for reasons other than being overseas.

Dr Kanwaljit Soin (Nominated Member): Sir, in view of the fact that some children do not register for school and in view of the Prime Minister's concern about the drop-outs from school, would the Minister reconsider his decision not to have compulsory education?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Mr Speaker, Sir, the answer is still no, because our situation is under control although the press has highlighted a few cases of children who have missed out on schooling. If voluntary welfare organisations know about these cases, they should refer them to my Ministry and we will do our best to facilitate their entry into school. But we should not treat this as if it is a rampant situation. There could only be a handful of cases. My Ministry will study further this number and see whether it is big. The key point is that you can compel a child to be in school but you cannot make him learn. Although many countries have compulsory education, in practice, they are not able to implement it and the drop-out rate is extremely high, for example, in developed countries.

Dr Kanwaljit Soin: Sir, Singapore, being a small country with birth certificates, the enforcement should be much easier than in bigger countries. Would the Minister consider that enforcement is not going to be a problem?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Sir, on the contrary, you may know where a person lives, but if a child runs away to some shopping centre, for example, you need to have a whole army of officers to track down such truants, as was the case in the UK. Fair enough, you know where these people are living, but do you really need to go and chase after them? I think it is better for us to counsel the parents, counsel the children, help them with their studies and make them stay in school.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, the Next Lap stated that every Singaporean should have at least 10 years of education. Now there is this question of a number of children dropping out from school and children who have failed to go to school. How does the Government, given the situation, propose to achieve the objective of the Next Lap?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Sir, I think we all share the same concern that we should educate our children to the maximum and make sure that most of our children go through 10 years of schooling. That is the purpose of our improved education system. For example, under the revision that we have implemented, from next year onwards, most of the primary school children will go on to secondary school. So there should be very few primary school drop-outs.

The key point is the method. How do we do it? Do we do it by persuasion? Do we do it by counselling, by making sure that children learn in school? Or do we do it by force of law? We can have a law against littering, but people are still littering. We can have a law against illegal parking, but people are still parking illegally. What is the method that we want?

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I am a bit surprised at the answer given by the Minister in not wanting to implement compulsory education. He says that we can make a child attend school but we cannot make him learn. If that is the case, the Minister is not doing anything about this huge number of drop-outs.

Some hon. Members: No!

Mr Chiam See Tong: Yes. I hear that there are 500,000-600,000 of these drop-outs in our labour force.

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Mr Speaker, Sir, Mr Chiam should check his figures before he makes a sweeping statement like that. The number of the lowly educated in our workforce is high because of the aged workers. Many of the older workers did not have the chance to go through 10 years of schooling. That is why, in proportion, it is quite a big number. But the number of drop-outs every year from school in our system is actually very small. And we are doing our best according to the methods that we think will work, which are counselling, improving the teaching methods, remedial lessons, working with the clan organisations, and so on. So it is not true that we are not doing anything.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, does the Minister not agree that if there is a problem of drop-outs, then the Ministry should do something more concrete, rather than leaving these drop-outs to clan associations and charitable organisations?

Mr Lee Yock Suan: Mr Speaker, Sir, my Ministry is not leaving it to clan organisations, CDAC, and so on. Our schools are the front-line. As soon as they find out that a child has been missing school, they will track down the child, persuade the child, meet the parents, and so on. If the child has problems, maybe financial problems, we refer him to charitable organisations to try to help him out. So we are doing the best we can. But we do not think that we need a law in Singapore because our purpose has been achieved. Many countries have laws for compulsory education but they have not been able to implement it and their drop-out rates are in fact way higher than in Singapore.