MOE enters into a Strategic Partnership with Self-Help Groups (SHGs) to Operate School-Based Student Care Centres
The Ministry of Education (MOE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with four Self-Help Groups (SHGs) – Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC), Yayasan MENDAKI, Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA), and The Eurasian Association (EA) to set up and operate 30 school-based Student Care Centres (SCCs) that will cater to students of all races. This strategic partnership, initiated by the joint commitment of the four SHGs, will allow schools to better support the holistic development of our students, especially students from less-advantaged backgrounds, by tapping on the community resources of the four SHGs.
The SHGs have had a long history of collaboration with our schools to benefit our students, especially those from lower-income families. They have been effective in spurring community support for this purpose. With the MOU, the four SHGs are now collectively committing to set up and operate 30 school-based SCCs through a joint venture company that will be owned by the four SHGs.
SCCs provide care and support for students after school, and run programmes to meet the broad range of the students’ social, emotional, recreational, physical, intellectual and creative needs, and also provide learning support for students who need additional support. The school-based SCCs operated by the four SHGs will draw on the expertise and experience of the SHGs in providing holistic development programmes for students from less-advantaged backgrounds.
In the past five years, MOE has progressively increased the number of school-based SCCs from less than 50 to 114 today, and enrolment in school-based SCC from around 3,000 to more than 10,000 today. This collaboration will allow MOE to further expand on the number of SCCs in our schools in partnership with the community.