Mountbatten Vocational School closes after 50 years

SINGAPORE – When it was announced in June that her son’s school, Mountbatten Vocational School (MVS), would be closing, Madam Doreen Lim, 54, took leave from work to find options for her 19-year-old son, who has autism.

She ended up rejected or wait-listed by organisations from St Andrew’s Autism School and THK Pan-Disability Centre @ Eunos to social enterprise food court Dignity Kitchen.

After several months, she managed to get her son, Mr Justin Phoon, into a six-week cafe skills training programme with social enterprise cafe

Madam Lim, who works part-time as a teacher, hopes her son can land a job with the cafe. In the meantime, she is continuing the search for sheltered workshops.

With the closure of MVS, “it is no longer very sheltered with a fraternity to take care of him. It’s only me and my family”, she said.

Parents of children at MVS said they were left in the lurch after the announcement of its closure, causing them to scramble to find new arrangements for their children.

The lack of options for people with special needs past the age of 18 who have graduated from special education schools, dubbed the “post-18 cliff”, has

.

Many parents do not want their children to stay at home, where they would regress without meaningful activities or interactions.

Students typically went to MVS around the age of 18 and had to graduate when they turned 21. They repeated Year 1 if they were not assessed to be work-ready.

The final batch of 37 students marked their last day of school on Nov 20 with a graduation ceremony and carnival. Alumni from as far back as the class of 2012 joined in the bittersweet last hurrah at the 225 Mountbatten Road campus, which shares premises with the Singapore Association for the Deaf (SADeaf).

MVS principal and administrator Ernest Toh said there were 22 students in Year 1, who are not considered to be work-ready, and 15 in Year 2.

Of the Year 2s, 11 obtained Institute of Technical Education (ITE) Skills Certificates in food preparation, food and beverage services or housekeeping operations.

Around 10 MVS graduates have found jobs, said Mr Toh. Most are continuing with workplaces they interned at during their time with MVS.

One of them, Mr Sri Ramachandran Vijayan, 20, is deaf and uses sign language to communicate. He will start full-time work as a housekeeper with Sofitel Singapore City Centre in December, continuing from his internship.

He said he is happy to be earning a salary of around $1,200.

MVS was founded in 1975 to train deaf young people to be skilled workers. To meet the needs of the community, it opened up to students with various learning disabilities in the later years.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) said in a joint reply that MVS had seen a decline in enrolment in recent years, with increased challenges in training students for the evolving job market.

Following a joint review in 2022, MOE, in agreement with SADeaf, which manages MVS, discussed ceasing MVS’ operations by end-2025, with MOE providing additional funding to help the school sustain the quality of its education up to the final cohort of students.

MVS also stopped enrolling new students from January 2024, so that the remaining students graduate in 2025, it added.

Over the past two years, SADeaf, together with MSF and SG Enable, explored its proposal to set up the Institute for Inclusive Futures (IIF), a vocational training centre for adults with disabilities. MOE and MSF also helped to secure a site for the new initiative.

“Despite extensive efforts from all involved, MOE and MSF were informed by the IIF Board that the transition would not be able to proceed, as it would require a significant change in operations for MVS,” said the statement.

In June, MVS notified its students and parents of the school’s closure by the end of the year.

They were also informed during a parent-teacher meeting that the IIF programme was cancelled due to budget issues.

Parents were disappointed that plans for the IIF fell through after the school already said there was a designated new place.

They thought the students would continue to learn in a familiar environment, with MVS students and staff moving to the new school.

One parent, Ms Elisa Adeliani, 51, said: “There was a big hope for our children, especially the ones who are not ready to work yet, who need more training and time, including my son, to continue their studies under IIF.”

The small business owner’s 20-year-old son has autism.

For Ms Adeliani’s family, who are Singapore permanent residents, the plan is to return home to Jakarta after 19 years here, having secured a place in a school there for her son.

For some MVS students, the plan is not as certain

Homemaker Elaine Chong, 54, is hoping for her son Ethan Justin Yeong to continue with The Tree Cafe, where he interned from May to November.

Mr Yeong, 21, who has global developmental delay, has an ITE Skills Certificate in food and beverage service from MVS.

As an intern, he worked five hours a day every weekday, and was paid $5 an hour.

He will also be getting the help of a job coach from SG Enable to assess and guide him.

SG Enable said MVS students with higher support needs are being referred for adult disability services, such as sheltered workshops or programmes run by the Enabling Services Hubs if they are living in the East, North-East and West regions.

Most of the cohort are receiving active guidance and transition support, while a small number are still weighing their options or making their own arrangements, the agency added.

Some MVS graduates who do not have a job or longer-term programme lined up have found a glimmer of hope with social enterprises.

On top of his thrice-a-week cafe skills training programme, Mr Phoon also takes paid baking classes and outings with Singapore Fashion Runway social enterprise if he has the energy.

“I don’t want him to lose momentum,” his mother said, adding that he enjoys his cafe training, though he dreads the crowded commute there.

Mr Zander Lim, 20, has been receiving training since April at a hydroponics farm with social enterprise The Nard Foundation, which offers training for people with special needs.

“What he needs now is to learn how to follow routines, follow instructions. So I’m grateful for the chance for him to be occupied and learn something. I’m not so particular about him getting paid,” his father Zachary Lim said.

He said his son is waiting to undergo a psychological assessment for enlistment into national service.

Diagnosed with autism when he was three, Mr Zander Lim went to Pathlight School and dropped out of ITE before going to MVS in 2024.

Mr Lim, a teacher, hopes to enrol his son in SG Enable’s work skills training programme. The School-to-Work Transition Programme by MOE, MSF and SG Enable, in partnership with special education schools, offers training and work options for students with disabilities.

His eventual hope is for his son to take up work such as hydroponics farming, which is slower paced and does not require much interaction with others.

Like Mr Phoon, some MVS graduates are also going through assessments to enter sheltered workshops.

The estimated waiting time for a place at APSN Centre for Adults is three to six months, while that at MINDS Regional Hub in Hougang and Queenstown is six months, according to an SG Enable guide to sheltered workshops as at Sept 30. For Bizlink’s sheltered workshop, the wait time stands at one year.

For those looking for vocational education, Metta School and APSN Delta Senior School also offer ITE Skills Certificates and Workforce Skills Qualifications courses respectively.

APSN also offers retail operations and horticulture vocations, while Metta School offers a residential air-conditioning course.

Metta School said it has a total of 434 students, with 111 of them in the ITE vocational certification programme and 24 in the vocational non-certification programme.

Dr Eunice Tan, head of special education at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, said: “Metta School and APSN run comparable programmes, and it is natural for parents to prefer these schools since their children have been educated within those systems.”

She added that day activity centres and sheltered workshops serve individuals who typically have higher support needs and greater daily living challenges, compared with those enrolled in MVS.

“As such, they… cannot be viewed as a direct replacement or equivalent,” she said.

Of the 15 MVS staff, Mr Toh said eight out of the 10 who were actively seeking new roles have already secured jobs in the social service and education sector.

Senior instructor and job coach Wong Kar Leng, 52, who spent 14 years in MVS, is starting a new role as a hospitality services teacher at Northlight School in January.

“I hadn’t gone for interviews in years. My resume was rusty,” she said. “But our principal asked us to send it in and MOE helped match us to new roles.”

Staff were seen wiping away tears at the ceremony.

Mr Toh, who is 61 and has spent 14 years with MVS, will be retiring at home in Penang. “I’m sad but proud of what we’ve done,” he said.

The day ended with a mass dance to songs like Shake It Off in the school hall, a session the students had every Thursday, for the very last time.