Will teachers lose jobs due to school mergers in Singapore?

With falling birth rates affecting student population sizes, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has merged some primary and secondary schools, and more recently junior colleges (JCs).

Thankfully, the MOE affirms that there will be no staff retrenchments in line with the school mergers.

In a press statement, MOE said it will work together with the affected schools to ensure a smooth transition to the merged school for staff and students, and in the process, forge a strong identity for the merged school.

"The history and heritage of both schools will be documented in a heritage space in the merged school building. As with all previous mergers, there will be no retrenchment of MOE staff," the statement added.

Explaining the reason behind the school mergers, the MOE noted that sufficient critical mass is needed for a school to offer a good range of educational programmes and co-curricular activities (CCAs) for its students. Schools with low enrolment would find it challenging to offer such a range, impacting students' learning experiences.

MOE revealed that the pairs of schools to be merged were identified based on considerations such as enrolment size, geographical proximity, suitability of merger partners and infrastructure capacity.

Sites for merged schools were chosen based on accessibility to transport and quality of infrastructure; with an additional consideration of overall geographical coverage across Singapore for JCs.

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