Re: Don't mind can share whether or not to let our kids study in Malaysia ?
School means daily trips to JB for S'pore teen
Muhd Zaid has good reason to not like his morning commute. -TNP
Zul Othman
Tue, Jul 31, 2012
The New Paper
PLUCKY: Muhd Zaid Mohamad Nasser with his schoolmates at Sri Ara International School.
Like any 14-year-old, Singaporean Muhd Zaid Mohamad Nasser dreads waking up to go to school.
Except in his case, Muhd Zaid has good reason to not like his morning commute - he attends the Sri Ara International School, a private education institution in Johor Baru.
The former Woodgrove Secondary student tells The New Paper on Sunday that he had to make a few adjustments when he transferred to the O-level programme there.
Every day, he wakes up at 5am. With passport in hand, the teenager leaves his family's five-room flat in Woodlands for the Causeway at around 6am.
On a good day, he reaches Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex in Johor Baru in about an hour.
From there, a school bus ferries him to Sri Ara, which is 5km from the Causeway.
"I leave early only because traffic can be a little unpredictable and the hours are long. On a good day, I end at 3pm," says Muhd Zaid.
"But I am quite happy to travel because I enjoy my studies there," he adds.
For now, Muhd Zaid belongs to a rare breed.
More common are JB kids who travel to Singapore to attend school to get an English-language education or one of "higher standards".
Sri Ara's vice-principal, Mr Steve Cowan, confirms that Muhd Zaid is the school's only Singaporean student who commutes across the Causeway daily. The rest are Singaporean students whose families live in JB.
But this situation could change soon with the inflow of educational institutions across the Causeway, he adds.
Apart from the six international schools operating in JB, five tertiary institutions have been set up in the Nusajaya township, a 20-minute drive from the Second Link in Tuas.
Next month, ultra-elite British public school Marlborough College opens in JB.
"As more Singaporeans are buying up property in Johor Baru, we do see more of them sending their children to schools here because an international school education is cheaper than what it is in Singapore," the 54-year-old Briton tells TNPS.
Another school, Fairview International - in Bandar Dato' Onn, which is a 10-minute drive from the Causeway - is the only one in JB offering an International Baccalaureate programme.
Fairview chairman Daniel Chian, 60, expects the international school sectors in JB to grow.
"There is a limit to the number of students that Singapore international schools can admit, so Johor schools have become an alternative," he notes.
The key to the entire JB schooling plan is a 242ha site - dubbed Iskandar EduCity - a collection of brand-name colleges and research centres like Singapore private school Management Development Institute of Singapore, Britain's Newcastle University, Marlborough College, University of Southampton and the Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology. Iskandar EduCity aims to house 16,000 students by 2015.
But the international schools here are unfazed by the competition.
When contacted, United World College of South East Asia's Ms Kate Woodford says it welcomes Marlborough College's new campus in Johor as it increases "the offerings and choices available to international families in the region and in Singapore".
She adds: "Any increase in supply through the opening of new institutions means additional choices for families (and) this provides more opportunities to better match the needs of individual students to the educational style and offerings of an institution, which is surely a key consideration for parents in selecting a school."
Agreeing, Dr Chin Kon Yuen, the chief executive officer and chairman of TMC Academy, says schools here will continue to attract applicants because "institutions here are well known for its structure, results and quality".
Parents, on the other hand, say the attraction of the schools in Johoris that they focus on a more holistic approach to education, which is less regimented than the curriculum offered in Singapore schools.
Muhd Zaid's father, Mr Mohamad Nasser Hassan, told TNPS that his son studied in an international school when he was working as a lecturer in 2010 at the Emirates International Maritime Academy in Dubai.
When the family returned last year, he decided that his son should continue learning in an international school "because it focused on a more holistic environment".
He says: "I feel that the character-building portions offered in Singapore schools are lacking because the focus is too much on academic excellence." While he admits that the RM21,000 (S$8,300) a year tuition at Sri Ara is not cheap, it is still at least 50 per cent cheaper than an international school education here.
"Another advantage is that at Sri Ara, my son gets to sit his (GCE O-level equivalent) International General Certificate of Secondary Education this year," adds the 48-year-old, who is a senior manager at a ship management company.
"If he were still in a Singaporean government school, he will do his O levels next year."
- Additional reporting by Esther Ng
This article was first published in The New Paper.
Source:
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Edvantage/Story/A1Story20120730-362338/2.html
