School and tuition fees during circuit breaker (<P1)

[American]

Hi Parents - I know many of you have small children below P1 enrolled in a myriad of international large, small or local preschools / kindergartens, in addition to enrichment courses (sports, music, math/English/language tuition). Our youngest isn’t old enough to have distance learning, but the school is requesting us to pay 100% of the full school term despite a forecasted 2 month break.

I wonder how your school is handling the situation? Obviously they have teachers to pay, rent to pay and overhead. We need our schools to stay in business. I have also read many local businesses are getting some sort of government relief, as are citizens. As non-citizens, we do not qualify for any relief.

I think it is only fair that there is some sort of reduced school term fee taking into account all of the Covid-19 Circuit Breaker and economic situation.

For our older child above P1 in International School, we have paid the full school term as she has distance learning.

Another question would be on the various enrichment courses, requesting a full term fee despite the lockdown. Some have online courses, but these are definitely not as effective as in-person instruction. One of the programs is only requiring us to pay 60% of the term fee, while continuing with online instruction, which I felt was fair. After all, they don’t have to run aircon, they may have gotten some rent relief or overall government assistance as local businesses.

Given the economic uncertainty, I think all parties need to come to a fair agreement on some kind of reduced term fee. After all, many companies are reducing pay, going on furlough, etc. Parents currently in Singapore: it would be great to hear your inputs on how you are handling the situation.

[abbby]

Tuitions are conducted through zoom and full fees are being paid. Not the most ideal situation since it lacks the human interaction and inability for teachers to look at the work done. Sending work to teachers are a pain in the butt as well. Scanning here and there and getting it back via softcopy and having to reprint again..terrifying IMO, the amount of administrative work needed for parents to go through just to sort out a couple of worksheets. Also, the amount of distraction at home and focus is not as good as being in schools and tuition centres.

[PNGMK]

It sucks but if you want to hold your place in the school you need to pay (and if you want the school to be there and running when we are free again!). I do wonder if all the schools will survive or whether some will shut down,

[Haruki]

I was glad at first to hear about the reduced fees at some tuition centres but after a while, I wasn't too sure if parents were getting their money's worth. I think whether or not a reduction in fee is reasonable depends not only on the lesson type (not all tutors and centres are set up for effective online teaching) but also on the class itself. Online Zoom lessons are much easier to disrupt with students chatting over the speaker, annotations going wild on screen, etc. making it hard for even the most studious kids to pay attention.