By: 永久浪客/Forever Vagabond
It has been reported that the Ministry of Education will raise school fees for non-Singaporeans from January next year.
School fees will increase by $20 to $60 per month for permanent resident students and by $20 to $150 per month for international student. School fees for Singaporean students will remain unchanged (https://theindependent.sg.sg/academic-says-moe-is-increasing-school-fees-to-prompt-more-prs-to-take-up-citizenship).
For example, changes of school fees for primary school are as follows:
Big subsidies given to foreign students by our magnanimous MOE
Despite the increase, international students are still paying pittance for attending our Singapore public schools compared to what they have to pay for private ones. In the above, international primary school kids will pay a monthly fee of $390 (ASEAN students) or $600 (the rest) next year.
According to an ST report in Jun this year, one of the cheapest “no-frills” international school, Invictus Private School, charges $15,000 a year (i.e, about $1,250 a month) for international primary school kids. Such schools do not come with any built-in facilities like gym or basketball court.
There are about 30 international schools here, whose yearly fees can amount to as much as $35,000 (i.e, about $3,000 a month).
Taking an average market rate of about $2,000 a month school fee for private schools and comparing it with $390 (ASEAN) and $600 (the rest) a month at our public schools for primary school kids, our government is subsidizing on average, 70% (the rest) to 80% (ASEAN) for international primary school kids.
So despite the announced school fee hike for internationals students, our government is still very magnanimous in subsidizing their studies at our public schools to a tune of 70 to 80%.