Edusave for madrasahs: “long-standing issue” but a welcome development nevertheless

Edusave

The Government started the scheme in 1993 by setting up the Edusave Endowment Fund with an initial contribution of $1 billion. The capital sum reached the targeted $5 billion by 1997. This fund is invested and the interest earned is disbursed as grants and awards to schools and students to pay for enrichment programmes and fund additional resources. .

After the National Day Rally announcement, any Singaporean child who is studying full-time in a government, government-aided or independent school, junior college, centralised institute, Institute of Technical Education or special education school, or enrolled in madrasahs, privately-funded schools, as well as children who are home-schooled or residing overseas, can benefit from Edusave.

Oneof the major announcements in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong'sNational Day Rally (NDR) speech was extension of the Edusave schemeto madrasah students. “Thisis a long-standing issue. Malay PAP MPs have raised this with me overmany years. We have reconsidered this policy, and we have decided tochange it. We will extend Edusave accounts and contributions to allstudents of school-going age, whether they attend madrasahs, studyabroad, or are home schooled,” Lee saidin his Malay speech.

Madrasah Alsagoff Al-Arabiah - the oldest surving madrasah in Singapore

Specifics by MOE

Aday later, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in a press release onAugust 19, stated,“With effect from 2014, Edusave contributions (EC) will be extendedto all children who are Singapore Citizens aged 7 to 16. This willbenefit20,000 more children, including those enrolled in madrasahs,privately-funded schools, as well as children who are home-schooledorresidingoverseas. Those aged 7 to12will receive the EC amount applicable to primary-level students,which is currently $200 per year. Those aged 13 to 16 will receivethe ECamountapplicable to secondary-level students, which is currently $240 perannum. Like students in MOE schools, children who are home-schooledor enrolled in non-MOE schools in Singapore will be able to use theirECtofund enrichment activities in Singapore organised by their educationproviders.”

For some, this “policy shift” hasbeen the most important take-away from PM's NDR this year.

Theopposition Workers' Party (WP) MP, Pritam Singh, in an interviewto The Strait Times said that according to him, the announcement inPM's speech that came “close to a strategic shift was extending ofEdusave to madrasah students”. TheWP in a statementon NDR 2013 also “welcomedthe use of Edusave for students in madrasahs, which is something thathas been advocated by the Workers’ Party in Parliament”.

Lastyear, Singh's colleague and fellow MP from Aljunied GroupRepresentation Constituency (GRC), Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap, whileparticipating in the debate for Committee of Supply had demanded thatEdusave be extended to madrasah students and argued,“Muslim parents send their children to either of the six full-timemadrasahs in Singapore  to teach them Islamic values in terms ofmanners, morals, humanism and courtesy. The religious curriculumtaught there emphasises the values of community and solidarity, andthe need to build a compassionate society where people live inharmony regardless of race, language and religion.”

Strategic shift or not but its certainly a welcomedevelopment.

Therecently released SuaraMusyawarahreport [an independent committee set-up by Minister-in-charge  ofMuslim affairsYaacob Ibrahim last year to collectfeedback on theconcerns and aspirations of Malays in Singapore] also recommendedextending Edusave to madrasah students. 

“Thereare strong calls across thevarious groupsthe committeemet, for thegovernment to provide greater support for thesix full-timemadrasahs.Notwithstandingthat madrasahs are Islamic religious schools thatoperate asprivate schoolsregistered withMOE, madrasah students are required to sit forthe PSLE since2008. Further,the JointMadrasah System (JMS) has made much progress in terms of reviewingthe madrasah curriculum to bemore in line withnational education. These efforts go to show that madrasahs offersecular educationcomponents that are aligned to the national curriculum, on top ofoffering Islamicreligious education. They also reflect the madrasahs’ efforts toensure thatthe quality of madrasah education and that madrasah graduates areequipped withsimilar knowledge alongside their peers who go to national schools,”said the Suara Musyawarah committee in its report.

The MOE has seta target to implement the extended Edusave scheme by the second halfof 2014 and will be releasing more details on its usage later.

The madrasah issue

Last year, the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) explained the madrasah issue in its third convention journal, The Next Decade: Strengthening Our Community’s Architecture. It stated:

“The madrasah issue emerged when the government introduced a new Education Act in 1999 which made it mandatory for all Singaporean children to attend primary schools. Given that madrasah education is considered private education, the implication was that children could only attend the madrasah at the secondary school level. The community opposed to the new policy. The issue worsened when the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong remarked that the madrasah were churning out too many graduates who were not sufficiently trained in the modern sciences and hence could not find jobs in the competitive Singapore job market. In essence, the Singapore government felt that the madrasah were churning out more graduates than needed by the Singaporean Muslim community. Thus, the six madrasah in Singapore are now restricted to a student intake of 400 students each. Madrasah students who are already enrolled in the system are exempted from the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), a compulsory examination for all students before entering secondary school. Students admitted after the Act came into effect, that is the 2003 cohort onwards, are required to take the PSLE and achieve a certain benchmark set by the government.”

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