What has CPE achieved in 4 years of existence?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

What has CPE achieved in 4 years of existence?


October 12th, 2013 | Author: Contributions



Dear TRE,

I read with dismay the press coverage regarding the outcome of the Council of
Private Education (CPE) versus Ms Han Hui Hui. Although CPE and Ms Han have
agreed to drop all legal proceedings against each other, Ms Han’s initial
concerns over the state of the Private Education Sector (PE sector) in
Singapore, including some cases of alleged malpractice by Private Educational
Institutes (PEIs), as well as the CPE’s scope of involvement in this area still
remains unaccounted for.

CPE was set up in December 2009 with the inauguration of the Private
Education Act (PEA) in September 2009. Its role as a statutory board under the
Ministry of Education (MOE) is to ensure that PEIs adhere to the minimal
educational and financial standards set by the CPE. With the establishment of
the CPE, the mandatory Enhanced Regulatory Framework (ERF) and the EduTrust
Certification Scheme (EduTrust) were introduced. Although attaining EduTrust
certification is voluntary, only PEIs with EduTrust are allowed to recruit
international students. As such, PEIs with EduTrust are expected to set and
maintain academic processes and assessment methods to a level deemed
satisfactory by the CPE.

On her blog, Ms Han had raised some serious allegations against major-player
PEIs that remain unaccounted for to this date. According to Ms Han, she had ‘set
those examinations questions and answers as well as marking the examination
scripts’, which led her to wonder why ‘CPE is giving EduTrust to PEIs that give
out exam papers questions and answers for students to memorize and regurgitate
during the actual examination’ [5]. As CPE’s vision is to achieve ‘a trusted and
well-regarded private education sector’ through its three-pronged approach of
‘effective regulation, industry development and consumer education’ [3], one
would expect that it would take student complaints against the PEIs under its
purview seriously. Instead, it had commenced legal action against Ms Han in what
Ms Han alludes to as an attempt to silence would-be whistle-blowers [7].

What has CPE achieved in its four years enforcing its ‘new regulatory regime’
over the PE sector? According to a 2010 document released by CPE, CPE’s role as
a ‘sectoral regulator’ is not meant to cause ‘significant market consolidation’
[1] but to bring about better quality control in local PEIs. In order to attain
EduTrust Certification and be able to recruit international students, schools
not only had to pass CPE’s financial and academic audits but to ensure
‘adequate’ physical facilities for students. This meant that many smaller PEIs
which could not afford to continue operating have shut down and thousands of
employees have been made redundant since 2010. Yet in 2011, ‘student enrolment
was up again despite fewer schools’, which meant that Singapore’s race to be a
global educational hub hosting 150,000 international students by the year 2015
had not been derailed one bit [5]. Says Mr. S. Vela who had invested more than
$400,000 in setting up Stamford College, “I feel the new rules were really meant
to weed out the smaller players, not raise standards all round.”

Irrespective of the intent upon which the ‘new regulatory regime’ was
established, the question remains: Has CPE carried out its stated function as a
statutory board responsible for the regulation of PEIs and discharged its duties
in accordance to its founding constitution?

According to the Private Education Act 2011, CPE is indeed a ‘body corporate’
that is capable of suing and being sued. However, its activities also fall under
the purview of the Ministry of Education and the jurisdiction of the Education
Minister. As the Council has the obligation to ensure that PEIs continue to
maintain the standards of its Edutrust certification scheme and also the power
to inspect the physical premises of and enforce legislation against PEIs. Ms
Han’s queries about whether CPE’s enforcement of the EduTrust certification
scheme is adequate enough to ensure student welfare are entirely legitimate. As
far as can be seen, CPE had no legal grounds to sue Ms Han in the first place as
she had not published anything of a defamatory nature against CPE as a ‘body
politic’.

By omitting to investigate student complaints against alleged misconduct by
PEIs seriously and instead commencing legal action against the very consumers it
was set up to protect, CPE has failed to be accountable to the Singapore
Government and the general public, whose greater well-being depends on the
quality of education offered by PEIs in Singapore.

I urge the public to call upon our Minister of Education, Mr Heng Swee Keat,
to look into this matter with the urgency and seriousness it deserves.

Yours
sincerely,

Yeo

References:

[About the Council of Private Education]:

1. Handbook: Enhanced Registration Framework 2010
http://www.cpe.gov.sg/cpe/slot/u100/...BOOK%20PDF.pdf

2. Handbook: Edutrust Certification 2012
http://www.cpe.gov.sg/cpe/slot/u100/...l%20170512.pdf

3. CPE Annual Report 2009/2011
http://www.cpe.gov.sg/cpe/slot/u100/...INAL%20PDF.pdf

[Schools Closing down]:

4. Straits Times, 25 July 2011
http://www.spring.gov.sg/NewsEvents/...x#.UldiqtIwexo

5. Straits Times, 11 Nov 2010
http://www.cpe.gov.sg/cpe/slot/u100/...10_rotated.pdf

[Allegations of Misconduct against PEIs from Ms Han’s blog]:

6.http://huihui247.blogspot.sg/search?...&by-date=false

7.http://huihui247.blogspot.sg/2013/04...t-for-its.html

[The Statutes of the Republic of Singapore]:

8. Private Education Act 2011
http://www.cpe.gov.sg/cpe/slot/u100/Legislation/Private%20Education/PE%20Act%20(Cap%20247A).pdf


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