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Around the World
Education for Students with
Visual Impairments in Singapore:
An Overview of Primary
and Secondary Programs
Meng Ee Wong and Noel Kok Hwee Chia
Special education schools in Singapore pro-
vide education to children with disabilities,
including those with intellectual, physical, or
sensory impairments. Most of these schools
cater to children aged 4 to 18. There are 20
special education schools run by various vol-
untary welfare organizations in Singapore; in-
cluded in these 20 schools is the primary
education provision for children who are vi-
sually impaired (Ministry of Education,
2009a). This arrangement is in line with the
government’s Many Helping Hands policy,
which involves a tripartite relationship be-
tween the government, the citizenry, and the
voluntary sector. The objective is to promote
active participation in the care of people with
disabilities (Ministry of Community Devel-
opment, Youth and Sports, 2005).
PRIMARY EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS
WHO ARE VISUALLY IMPAIRED
Since 1956, the Singapore School for the Visu-
ally Handicapped (SSVH) has been the only
school that has provided special education for
students with visual impairments up to the pri-
mary level. However, over the past 50 years, the
©2010 AFB, All Rights Reserved
enrollment from its height of some 100 children
in the 1960s and 1970s (P. K. Koh, personal
communication, April 3, 2009) to 56 in 1988
(Quah, 1993). Today, the school serves 40 chil-
dren, of whom 18 have multiple disabilities in
addition to visual impairment. Thus, strictly
speaking, there are only 22 students with visual
impairments and no other disabilities (P. K.
Koh, personal communication, April 3, 2009).
To justify the economics of operating the
school, in 2003, SSVH began to broaden its
curriculum to include children with visual im-
pairments and additional disabilities, children
with hearing impairments, and children with
autism spectrum disorder (SSVH, 2008) to mit-
igate its operational costs. This change of cur-
riculum was a significant transformation from
its origins. Naturally, the previous name was no
longer adequately representative of its new cur-
riculum and the students it served. Conse-
quently, the school adopted its new name, the
Lighthouse School, in 2008 to reflect the
change.
The goals of the Lighthouse School are as
follows:
• to ensure that the developmentally intact
children with visual impairments and hear-
ing impairments perform well in their Pri-
mary Six Leaving Examination (PSLE, na-
tional streaming examinations at the end of
primary school);
• to ensure that the developmentally intact
children with visual impairments and hear-
ing impairments are given as rounded an
education as possible;
• to ensure that children with multiple disabilities
have adequate preparation in reading, writing,
and arithmetic and in daily living skills;
• to encourage children with visual impair-
ments who are having difficulties in a
general education school to benefit from the
individualized programs it provides; and
• to maximize the potential of every child to
the fullest (see Lighthouse School, 2009a).
Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2010 243
 To achieve these goals, the Lighthouse
School (2009b) offers the following programs:
1. Normal Program, whose curriculum paral-
lels the mainstream school curriculum
2. Vision Development Program
3. Visual- and Hearing-Impaired Program
4. Special Class Program
5. Autistic Spectrum Disorder Program
The variety of programs reflects the chal-
lenge of having to cater to a diversity of
needs. These programs range from a curricu-
lum to foster independent living and study
skills for children with visual impairments to
more specific skills for children who are deaf-
blind to a class for children with multiple
disabilities including visual impairments, to
preparing children for PSLE. Beyond these
specific programs for children who are visu-
ally impaired, the school also offers a class
for children with autism spectrum disorder.
POSTPRIMARY EDUCATION
In 2007, the Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
(AISS) marked its 40 years of supporting stu-
dents with visual impairments. The Open Edu-
cation Program, which supports a total of 17
students with visual impairments, constitutes an
integral part of the school’s provisions (AISS,
2007).
Students with visual impairments at AISS
attend the mainstream classes for regular les-
sons and take five to eight subjects. The school
supports these students through a resource
room, where resource teachers assist them in
their queries or provide modified materials for
access to the curriculum. Students who use
braille are provided with braille books and
braillewriters for use in class. The resource
room is also equipped with computers and as-
sistive technology. Typically, as Ng (2000) ex-
plained, a resource teacher supports students
with visual impairments by performing the fol-
lowing tasks:
1. coordinating with the Ministry of Edu-
cation and the Lighthouse School to
244 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2010
place students in integration or attach-
ment centers;
2. supporting and facilitating students’ par-
ticipation in the instructional program in
class by providing braille textbooks, work-
sheets, and practice papers; transcribing
materials from braille to print and print to
braille; recording printed material in audio
formats; teaching students to use special
equipment, such as talking scientific cal-
culators, talking and braille dictionaries,
and geometric drawing kits; and providing
remedial lessons to students who have dif-
ficulty coping with class lessons;
3. teaching braille to students with low or
diminishing vision;
4. teaching students to use computers with
screen readers and related assistive
technology;
5. counseling students with problems related
to academic studies, social interaction in
and outside school, psychological stress,
and personal decorum and social etiquette;
6. assisting students in participating in extra-
curricular activities and other programs of
the school;
7. upgrading and acquiring new equipment
for the resource room; and
8. conferring with the mainstream teaching
staff members about the needs and abilities
of students with visual impairments.
Today, besides AISS, three other schools that
are designated to support the secondary educa-
tion of students with visual impairments are
Bedok South, Clementi Woods, and Dunearn
(Ministry of Education, 2009b). These schools
provide the educational and social environment
to achieve successful integration. They help stu-
dents who are visually impaired adjust to the
school environment, pursue their studies, and
interact socially with their peers. The learning is
mutually beneficial to both students with visual
impairments and the larger school population,
students and staff members without disabilities.
Teachers offer supplementary lessons when
©2010 AFB, All Rights Reserved
needed. Fellow students assist their class-
mates with reading and mobility. In 2006, an
estimated 70 students with visual impair-
ments were attending either primary or sec-
ondary schools, 35 in each type of school
(Ministry of Education, 2006).
Students with visual impairments who have
successfully completed their secondary educa-
tion proceed to postsecondary education. How-
ever, no formal postsecondary institutions are
designated to support students with visual im-
pairments. Rather, it is the responsibility of
the students to obtain supplementary assis-
tance independently. Often, students with vi-
sual impairments receive help from the insti-
tutions they enter and independently negotiate
for assistance from a voluntary welfare orga-
nization, such as the Singapore Association of
the Visually Handicapped (SAVH).
DISCUSSION
The provision of education for students with
visual impairments is most structured during
the early primary education years at the
Lighthouse School, semistructured during the
secondary education years at the designated
schools, and least defined at the postsecond-
ary level and beyond. The present system
advocates for fostering academic and social
skills for independence at the earliest stage
possible, and by the end of secondary school,
students with visual impairments are well pre-
pared for the experience of higher education,
which calls for resourcefulness and indepen-
dence. Although primary provision is situated
on the special education spectrum, students
follow the mainstream primary curriculum in
preparation for mainstream secondary educa-
tion. Yet a critical look at postsecondary ed-
ucation reveals the lack of the structured pro-
vision of support in postsecondary education,
which, in turn, places stress on the transition
beyond secondary school. Moreover, such a
paucity of services reflects several deeper
chasms:
©2010 AFB, All Rights Reserved
1. The steady decline in the enrollment of stu-
dents with visual impairments at the Light-
house School is puzzling. While the decreas-
ing number implies that the fight against
blindness has been won in Singapore, the
SAVH figures have suggested otherwise.
2. The multiple programs offered at the Light-
house School have raised the question of
whether students with visual impairments
are adequately prepared for the transition to
the designated secondary schools.
3. Tenuous support for students with visual
impairments in postsecondary schools
continues to be a barrier to extending fur-
ther education. Without concrete, adequate
services, pathways to further and higher
education will not be nurtured.
Number of students with visual
impairments
The declining number of primary students
with visual impairments at the Lighthouse
School is both a reason for celebration and a
point of puzzlement. As a reason for celebra-
tion, it suggests that the fight against blindness
in Singapore has been effective in reducing vi-
sual impairment in children. There are only 35
students who are visually impaired in the pri-
mary schools (Ministry of Education, 2006).
Taking these figures at face value, there is rea-
son to celebrate the fact that only a small num-
ber of children with visual impairments require
specialist support in Singapore. Yet these fig-
ures appear to be incomplete if the register for
people who are blind at SAVH, the single col-
lection of statistics of persons with visual im-
pairments (Lim, 1998), is examined.
Although SAVH captures the number of per-
sons with visual impairments in Singapore, its
figures are dependent on voluntary registration.
On the basis of the 2007– 08 SAVH annual
report (SAVH, 2008), the statistics of students
who are of school age are presented in Table 1.
The Ministry of Education (2006) estimated
that 70 students with visual impairments were
registered in primary and secondary schools.
Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2010 245
Table 1
Number of individuals with visual impairments
in Singapore (from birth to age 24).
Age range
(in years) Blind Low vision
0 to 4 8 7
5 to 12 35 59
13 to 18 36 64
19 to 24 30 74
Total 109 204
Source: SAVH, 2008, p. 43.
This figure falls short of the SAVH statistics,
which recorded 194 students aged 5 to 18. For
the age range of 7 to about 17, an approximation
of 150 would be conservative if a factor of 15
per age cohort was taken to adjust the figures.
Yet when these figures are compared to studies
of the incidence of visual impairments in chil-
dren (see Rahi & Cable, 2003) and the global
prevalence of blindness (see “Blindness in the
World,” 2000), the figures seem unusually mod-
est. Where are the other children who are visu-
ally impaired? Yet the divergent definitions of
visual impairment and disability that have been
used in capturing statistics to determine a uni-
versal measure are debatable, as evidenced even
with national samples, such as those of the
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB,
2008) and disability statistics from the National
Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research (see, for example, ⬍www.ilr.
cornell.edu/edi/disabilitystatistics/index.cfm⬎).
Greater efforts by medical, social support, and
governmental agencies need to be organized in
concert to establish a national database to track
and monitor numbers. Without reliable figures
to work with, services and support cannot be
adequately provided.
Multicurricula: Need for specific
preparation
With the curriculum at the Lighthouse School
serving only up to primary grade 6, the school
must ensure that graduating students are suffi-
ciently prepared for the transition to mainstream
246 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2010
secondary schools. Compared to their sighted
counterparts, students with visual impairments
are not socializing as much and not socializing
with sighted peers, which leads them to spend
Total
more time alone engaging in passive activities
15 (Zell-Sacks, Wolffe, & Tierney, 1998). That the
94 new curriculum at the Lighthouse School caters
100 to students with a diversity of disabilities raises
104 the question of whether students with visual
313
impairments are being socialized enough to pre-
pare them to enter the mainstream. With other
students with hearing impairments and autism
spectrum disorder forming their immediate cir-
cle of interaction, students with visual impair-
ments do not have adequate opportunities to
interact with typically developing children,
which is critical in fostering friendships before
they leave for secondary school. Studies have
found that ecosocial factors, such as the level of
social interaction with persons without disabil-
ities and the level of integration into the com-
munity, may influence the success of persons
with disabilities in being independent in adult-
hood (Zell-Sacks et al., 1998). Social skills
competencies therefore cannot be left to chance,
and given the diversity of disabilities of students
at the Lighthouse School, the development of
appropriate social skills among the students
who are visually impaired cannot be ignored.
Need for clear pathways
to postsecondary education
The provision of support beyond secondary
school is tenuous for students with visual im-
pairments. No matter which destination along
the postsecondary continuum one decides on,
the support structures to facilitate the successful
transition from one point to another are weak.
Without a concrete system of support in place,
students with visual impairments cannot easily
access the educational supply chain. This situ-
ation will only impede the already meager num-
ber of students with visual impairments from
expanding their postsecondary educational op-
tions and thereafter their entry into mainstream
society (Adams & Holland, 2006).
©2010 AFB, All Rights Reserved
CONCLUSION
The presence, support, and future of education
for students with visual impairments cannot be
further compromised as a consequence of the
apparently diminishing number of students.
Identification, advocacy, and outreach are criti-
cal if students with visual impairments are to
move beyond being merely recipients of basic
education to being nurtured to fulfill their aspi-
rations to realize their fullest potential.
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