LASALLE College of the Arts will develop a new building adjacent to its existing campus. 

The Ngee Ann Kongsi donated S$50 million to LASALLE College of the Arts – their largest-ever, single donation to date – to develop a new building for the College.

The new 12-storey building will be named The Ngee Ann Kongsi Building. It will be built on a plot of land earmarked for LASALLE, adjacent to the existing campus on McNally Street and connected to Rochor MRT station. The new unified campus is envisioned to have a glass façade that opens into the vibrant thoroughfare of Rochor Canal Road. The announcement of the new building caps off a memorable year for LASALLE, which saw the College receive its second consecutive EduTrust Star, Singapore’s highest mark of quality for a private education institution.

The Ngee Ann Kongsi Building will house an upgraded library to hold a larger collection of books and other arts resources, film and TV studio facilities and a music recital hall that will present free concerts for members of the public. There will be new galleries on the ground floor to reach out to the community as well as specialist and flexible spaces to meet future learning and teaching needs. The public can also look forward to facilities for a wide array of Continuing Education and Training (CET) programmes for professional and personal development. 

Website: www.lasalle.edu.sg

Q & M Dental Group has opened Singapore's first private dentistry college, offering graduate diploma studies in clinical dentistry. The Q & M College of Dentistry aims to provide a platform for dentists to upgrade their skills and learn best practices in Dentistry, including performing dental procedures with the latest technologies and materials.

They have put in place their own academic and examination board for Q & M College of Dentistry. Their teaching faculty is made up of more than 30 Lecturers of senior General Practitioners and Specialists. Apart from dentists here, the college could also enrol practitioners in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and Indonesia.

Raffles Girls' School has moved to their new campus on 21 October.

Their new campus will allow the school to better cater to the holistic development of their students and engagement of the community. This will be achieved through features that facilitate innovative thinking and learning of socio-emotional competencies and interpersonal skill.

In moving to the Braddell/Toa Payoh area, they will also partner the neighbouring primary schools and Volunteer Welfare Organisations (VWOs) for service learning.

2 Braddell Rise

Tel: +65 6737 1845 Email: rgss@moe.edu.sg

Previously known as Shelter for Men-in-Crisis, Transit Point on Spooner Road is New Hope Community Services' (NHCS) shelter for male former offenders. 

The new location near Outram Park MRT station has a range of new facilities and room for up to 60 residents. 

Transit Point is funded by the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises, a statutory board under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The shelter's previous location at a rented bungalow in Punggol could cater for only 20 to 25 residents. 

The Shelter for Men-in-Crisis began operating in 2003 and provides temporary housing to ex-offenders. These ex-offenders might have been rejected by their families for various reasons or not have a conducive home environment for their return. NHCS believes in giving them a second chance and assisting them to rebuild their lives, so that they can reintegrate into the society. At the shelter, the duration of stay is 3 months. During this period, the Case Managers will work with the residents to develop an Individualized Care Plan focusing on their employment and long term or permanent housing solutions. 

3 Spooner Road

Japan’s largest train operator East Japan Railway Company (JR East) will open retail shops in 27 of the 32 stations on the future Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL). Operations is slated in phases from the end of this year.

The 43km TEL will add 32 new stations to the existing rail network, including eight interchange stations linking the TEL to all five existing MRT lines. Besides enhancing connectivity between the north, central and eastern parts of Singapore, TEL will strengthen the resilience of our rail network by providing alternative travel routes for commuters on other lines.

When fully operational in 2024, the TEL is expected to serve approximately 500,000 commuters daily in the initial years, with the figure rising to about one million commuters in the longer term.

Website: www.lta.gov.sg

Shopee is the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. In just four years, Shopee has grown from just 10 employees to more than 1,500. Shopee's new 6-storey regional headquarters at Kent Ridge spans 244,000 sg ft and can accomodate up to 3,000 employees.

The new headquarters is designed with the main overarching concepts of promoting connectivity, collaboration and community.

Website: https://shopee.sg

By 2027, the National Environment Agency (NEA) will complete the building of 20 new hawker centres, located in different parts of Singapore to serve the needs of residents. To date, seven of these new hawker centres have been completed and have started operations. Experience from the last four years shows that new hawker centres largely take time to establish themselves. As more hawker centres are built in the coming years, a new Staggered Rent Scheme will be introduced to support stallholders’ businesses in the initial years of the new hawker centres’ operations.

After a hiatus of almost 30 years, the new hawker centre building programme started from 2011 to ensure that residents have continued access to affordable food in a hygienic environment. To date, seven new hawker centres have been built and are managed by socially-conscious enterprises, of which two have gone on to their second term of operation.  In their regular review of hawker centres, a key learning point is that new hawker centres take time to establish themselves. Time is generally needed to raise potential patrons’ awareness of these new centres and for the stallholders at the centres to build up a regular clientle and stabilise their businesses. 

13 more new hawker centres will be completed by 2027. With the Staggered Rent Scheme, stallholders of these new hawker centres will benefit from lower rentals in the first two years of the centres’ operations, at 80% and 90% of stall rentals respectively. The upcoming hawker centre at Bukit Canberra, targeted to be operational in the second half of 2020, will be the first new hawker centre to benefit from the implementation of the Staggered Rent Scheme.

Website: www.nea.gov.sg

As part of the Ministry of Education’s continuing efforts to support students with Special Educational Needs (SEN), Pathlight School will operate a second permanent campus in Tampines from January 2023. This was announced by Second Minister for Education, Ms Indranee Rajah, during her visit to Pathlight Campus 1, where she also recently officiated the opening of its inclusive worksite. 

Established by the Autism Resource Centre (Singapore), Pathlight is a government-funded Special Education (SPED) school, which offers the national curriculum to students with moderate-to-severe SEN, and students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). To address the growing demand from students with ASD who are able to access the national curriculum, the new Campus 2 will provide about 500 additional primary level school places. 

The new purpose-built campus will be located at the site of the former East View Primary School at Tampines Street 91. The site was selected based on the geographical distribution of Pathlight’s current demand, and the site’s close proximity to mainstream schools such as Junyuan Primary School and St Hilda’s Primary School. Such physical proximity will enhance opportunities for interaction through joint activities, between Pathlight students and their peers in mainstream schools.

To support learning for Pathlight students, the new Campus 2 will have infrastructure provisions similar to mainstream primary schools, plus specialised facilities to cater to the needs of students with ASD. These include an Indoor Sports Hall, a daily living skills room, and therapy rooms. 

Currently, Pathlight has two campuses, with about 1,400 primary, secondary and vocational track students. The interim Campus 2 will continue to serve its students when the new Campus 2 starts operation in January 2023. 

MOE will continue to monitor and review the demand for SPED school places, and will work with Social Service Agencies to provide sufficient capacity to cater to the needs of specific student profiles. Please refer to the Annex for more information on MOE’s ongoing efforts to meet demand for places in SPED schools.

Website: https://www.pathlight.org.sg