Education for Students with Visual Impairments in Singapore: An Overview of Primary and Secondary Programs

Abstract

Special education schools in Singapore provide education to children with disabilities, including those with intellectual, physical, or sensory impairments. Most of these schools cater to children aged 4 to 18. There are 20 special education schools run by various voluntary welfare organizations in Singapore; included in these 20 schools is the primary education provision for children who are visually impaired (Ministry of Education, 2009a). This arrangement is in line with the government's Many Helping Hands policy, which involves a tripartite relationship between the government, the citizenry, and the voluntary sector. The objective is to promote active participation in the care of people with disabilities (Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, 2005). PRIMARY EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS WHO ARE VISUALLY IMPAIRED Since 1956, the Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped (SSVH) has been the only school that has provided special education for students with visual impairments up to the primary level. However, over the past 50 years, the school has seen a gradual decline in its student enrollment from its height of some 100 children in the 1960s and 1970s (P. K. Koh, personal communication, April 3, 2009) to 56 in 1988 (Quah, 1993). Today, the school serves 40 children, of whom 18 have multiple disabilities in addition to visual impairment. Thus, strictly speaking, there are only 22 students with visual impairments and no other disabilities (P. K. Koh, personal communication, April 3, 2009). To justify the economics of operating the school, in 2003, SSVH began to broaden its curriculum to include children with visual impairments and additional disabilities, children with heating impairments, and children with autism spectrum disorder (SSVH, 2008) to mitigate its operational costs. This change of curriculum was a significant transformation from its origins. Naturally, the previous name was no longer adequately representative of its new curriculum and the students it served. Consequently, the school adopted its new name, the Lighthouse School, in 2008 to reflect the change. The goals of the Lighthouse School are as follows: * to ensure that the developmentally intact children with visual impairments and hearing impairments perform well in their Primary Six Leaving Examination (PSLE, national streaming examinations at the end of primary school); * to ensure that the developmentally intact children with visual impairments and hearing impairments are given as rounded an education as possible; * to ensure that children with multiple disabilities have adequate preparation in reading, writing, and arithmetic and in daily living skills; * to encourage children with visual impairments who are having difficulties in a general education school to benefit from the individualized programs it provides; and * to maximize the potential of every child to the fullest (see Lighthouse School, 2009a). To achieve these goals, the Lighthouse School (2009b) offers the following programs: 1. Normal Program, whose curriculum parallels the mainstream school curriculum 2. Vision Development Program 3. Visual- and Hearing-Impaired Program 4. Special Class Program 5. Autistic Spectrum Disorder Program The variety of programs reflects the challenge of having to cater to a diversity of needs. These programs range from a curriculum to foster independent living and study skills for children with visual impairments to more specific skills for children who are deaf-blind to a class for children with multiple disabilities including visual impairments, to preparing children for PSLE. Beyond these specific programs for children who are visually impaired, the school also offers a class for children with autism spectrum disorder. POSTPRIMARY EDUCATION In 2007, the Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School (AISS) marked its 40 years of supporting students with visual impairments. …