SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) will not be revisiting the names of merged junior colleges (JCs), its senior minister of state Janil Puthucheary said in Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 6).
He was responding to Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol Zainal Sapari, who asked whether the ministry is willing to reconsider the names of merged schools to manage “ground sensitivities”.
“We should let the schools focus on their teaching and learning programmes to benefit their students,” Dr Puthucheary said. MOE announced the names of the four merged schools last month.
Senior Minister of State for Education Janil Puthucheary in Parliament.
He said that the three options when choosing a name are retaining one of the two names, coming up with a new name and combining names. He said that in the combining of names, the ministry ensures the name is meaningful, and that it is not repetitive.
The factors that go into the decision include the age profile of the students, the history and heritage of the schools and stakeholders’ interests, he added. He also said that similar factors go into naming primary and secondary schools as well as JCs.
In the case of the recent JC mergers, he said stakeholders including the students, alumni and parents were engaged in the process of deciding the name. School leaders engaged stakeholders on key elements of the merger including programmes and values to be retained and names, he added.
“On balance, a decision was made to have a combined name to allow the merging JCs to move forward as a combined entity,” he said.
He was responding to Mr Zainal’s questions on why there is inconsistency in the approach adopted in finding an appropriate school name for different educational levels and whether the respective schools’ stakeholders, including alumni, staff, parents and pupils, are engaged in the process of naming the merged schools.
MP for Pasir Ris-Punggol Zainal Sapari in Parliament.
Mr Zainal also asked what support is being given to the affected merged JCs alumni associations to help them retain the history of their schools.
Dr Puthucheary said that there will be a “localised” and a personal effort by the schools in the development of materials for this purpose. “We will work with both schools, both sets of alumni to try to find some way of commemorating the heritage and history of both schools,” he added.
