Boston Business Management School

There will be two stages in this regulatory regime:  In the first stage all existing private educational institutions (PEIs) registered with the Ministry of Education and new PEIs will have to register under the new Enhanced Mandatory Registration Framework.  It will be an offence punishable by law if PEIs operate without being registered under the mandatory ERF. 

This mandatory ERF will replace the existing one-off registration system in that more stringent requirements will put place to register PEIs and that registration granted will be valid for a specific period of time as stipulated by the CPE.  If the CPE is satisfied that the registered PEIs are operating as required then the registration will be renewed accordingly.

In the second stage all PEIs can participate in the voluntary certification scheme called EduTrust.  This scheme will build on CaseTrust’s coverage on the protection of fees paid by students and introduce additional requirements such as academic, financial and administration processes and student welfare matters.  All PEIs that want to admit foreign students will have to be certified under the EduTrust scheme.  PEIs that only conduct courses for Singaporeans and those already resident in Singapore do not need to have the EduTrust certification.  Such PEIs only need to be registered under the mandatory ERF.

The new EduTrust certification will have different grades – Provisional, Bronze, Silver and Gold.  Those attaining the Gold EduTrust certification will be considered as achieving the pinnacle of academic and operational efficiency.  By grading PEIs, this new EduTrust scheme gives new students a snapshot of the standards in the private education industry and pushes PEIs to continuously improve themselves to reach the Gold standard.

There will be focus group discussions to get feedback from private education institutions and students.  There will also be a public consultation exercise with industry players as well as the public from the 11th of March to the 6th of May.  More information on the new Private Education Bill can be obtained from the Ministry of Education’s website (www.moe.gov.sg).