THE Government will commit more resources at all levels of the education system to nurture every skill and talent.

Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam promised in his Budget speech on Friday: 'We will commit more resources to achieve higher standards in the pre-school sector, which will especially benefit children from lower-income backgrounds.'

'We will also enhance our financial assistance schemes to help more families with their children's fees in kindergartens and childcare centres.'

More details of these initiatives will be announced later.

The government will continue to invest in higher quality education in every school and pay teachers competitively to retain good and dedicated people, and improve the pupil-teacher ratio in every school to enhance the learning experience for all our pupils.

"Indoor sports halls will be coming to all our schools. We are also putting more resources into overseas immersion for a broad base of students and new boarding school programmes that will enhance opportunities for bonding and a rigorous all-round education," he added.

To help students meet the cost of tertiary education, he said the Government will significantly enhance bursaries given to students from the lower-income group and provide more assistance to those in the middle-income brackets.

For university students, the Government will:

Increase the grant quantum of the CDC/CCC-University Bursary from $1,000 to $1,600 a year for students from households with per capita income of up to $500 a month.

Increase the grant quantum of the MOE Bursary from $800 to $1,200 a year for students from households with per capita income of up to $1,200 a month.

Extend the MOE Bursary at a quantum of $800 a year for students from households with per capita income of up to $1,700 a month.

Extend the Study Loan Scheme to students from households with per capita income of up to $2,400 a month.
The minister said the university sector is entering a new phase Noting that the three universities here - NUS, NTU and SMU - are stepping up to a new level of excellence, Mr Shanmugaratnam said the number of subsidised university places will be raised from 25 per cent to 30 per cent of each cohort by 2015, with four publicly-funded universities.

The Government spending on the universities will increase by one quarter, or by $500 million annually. Besides the four universities, there will be a range of other programmes that will enable students to earn degrees in specialised fields, like early childhood education and naval architecture.

'We will stand out, even among developed countries, in the way we provide a top quality range of publicly-subsidised university options to a sizeable proportion of Singaporeans to aspire toward and take advantage of,' said the minister.

'Our young Singaporeans are taking advantage of this and they keep surprising the world with what they are capable of.'

He cited the team of first-year students from the NUS which won an award given to the top ten teams in the Mondialogo Engineering Competition - the largest competition for young engineers with ideas that can change the world, organised by Daimler-Chrysler and Unesco last year.

'They were up against 800 teams, including many with PhD students. Their project focused on how solar processing can be used to help farmers preserve fruit so as to raise their incomes. These were first-year students from NUS - three Singaporeans and two Malaysians who had done JC education in Singapore,' said Mr Shanmugaratnam.

'They made up for the fact that they were only in their first year, by doing their own research, and teamed up with two senior undergraduate students from the Mumbai University Institute of Chemical Technology - using the connections between faculty of the two universities.

He added: 'We will also provide enhanced assistance to needy students to make sure that financial status remains no obstacle to pursuing studies at our publicly-funded universities.'

'Our universities must be able to charge realistic and sustainable fees, so that they can recruit good faculty, improve their faculty-student ratios over time and provide a top quality education. This is the only way we can build a world-class university system for Singaporeans.'

He said the Government provides very significant subsidies for university education, at 75 per cent of costs. Students also have easy access to loans to fund a large part of their fees.

This system is fair, since university graduates can expect to earn a significant premium in the employment market and to afford to pay back their loans gradually after they start work.

There will also be more assistance for those in the middle-income brackets to ensure that no student needs to face an excessive burden of loans at the start of his working life, he added.

Further, through a combination of bursaries and loans, students within the bottom two-thirds of the population will not need to expend cash for either their fees or living expenses during their university years. Polytechnic Bursaries

The bursary quantums for polytechnic students will also be raised - from $1,000 to $1,200 per annum. The government will also introduce new MOE Bursary Scheme for polytechnic students from the bottom 50 per cent of households, set at set at $800 per year.

Bursaries will also be estended to students enrolled in MOE-funded diploma programmes in the arts institutions - such LaSalle and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. The Study Loan Scheme for diploma students will be extended to 80 per cent of households.

The Minister also announced a a top up of $100 to $400 for each of 2008 and 2009 in the Post-Secondary Education Accounts (PSEAs) for all student.

He has more good news: 'Given the good surplus that we had last year, I will now make a further top-up later this year.'

'We will provide the majority of students, which includes those from all HDB homes, $300 for those still in primary school and $600 for those in secondary schools. Including what was announced previously, this means that secondary school students would have up to $1,400 in their accounts by March next year to use for their post-secondary education.' said the minister.

The additional top-up this year will cost the Government $300 million.

Structure of New PSEA Top-ups

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