|
 2005
has been another excellent and eventful year for our schools. In the
ACS brand of education, the long established holistic approach has
been consistently applied with great success. I will not dwell on
the numerous achievements in the academic and the co-curricular
activities of our schools as these have already been widely covered
in the previous issues of the Echo. Instead, I would like to share
with you the exciting developments that lie ahead for the ACS family
of schools.
ACS (International) Singapore has now completed a
full year’s operation successfully, thanks to those who played a
part in the successful startup of the school. In particular, I would
like to thank the Directors, Principal, teachers, school staff and
parents; it has not been easy for them considering the many
challenges associated with the startup operations of a new school.
Because of the high demand for the ACS brand of education, I am
pleased that the school has doubled its intake of students to 400
this year, 40 percent of which are from countries around the region
like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and China.
As planned and in line with the Singapore
Government’s recent move to encourage education providers to export
their services, we have teamed up with an Indonesian businessman, an
ACS old boy, to set up a new S$20 million campus in Jakarta known as
ACS (International) Jakarta. It will begin operation by the middle
of this year. Catering to students from 6 to 18 years old, the
private school will employ the ACS curriculum and ACS teachers as
consultants. It plans to start with an initial intake of 500 and
expects the enrolment to grow to 1,200 in four years. Plans are also
underway to export the much sought after ACS brand of education to
other countries around the region like China.
We are in the midst of intense activities in the
construction, expansion and renovation of the ACS schools. The S$47
million extension of ACS (Independent) and ACJC’s S$15 million
Centre of Performing Arts are scheduled for completion in the second
quarter of 2006 and by end 2007 respectively. ACS (Junior) will be
relocated to Winstedt Road by the 4th quarter of 2007 after the
completion of major renovations to the existing 3.2 hectares Monk’s
Hill Secondary School. With the continuing strong demand for ACS
(International) Singapore, plans are in the pipeline to enlarge the
canteen and build 16 additional classrooms to be ready by the 3rd
quarter of 2007.
Finally, I would like to place on record my
appreciation of the ACS OBA for initiating the ACS Teachers & Staff
Welfare Fund. Launched in 2000, this Fund has been well supported by
ACS Old Boys & Girls and now stands at about S$80,000. Several
retired ACS teachers in financial need have already benefited from
this Fund.
Tan Wah Thong
Chairman
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