Look Ahead 2019: Education — New year, new school for some JC students
When Sabrina Grace Pereira, 18, first heard about the junior college merger, she was upset at being separated from her friends who were advancing to their second year at Jurong JC and she was nervous about starting over in a new environment.
SINGAPORE — Sabrina Grace Pereira, 18, will kick off her second year in junior college (JC) in January by swopping her white polo shirt — which has the school crests of Jurong and Pioneer JCs — for the white-and-blue uniform of her new school, Jurong Pioneer JC.
Jurong Pioneer JC is one of the four newly merged JCs which began operations this academic year. The other colleges are Anderson Serangoon, Yishun Innova and Tampines Meridian. This change was announced by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2017.
The ministry said then that the move to merge the eight JCs was prompted by falling birth rates and shrinking cohort sizes. It added that about 24,700 candidates were posted to post-secondary institutions in the 2018 Joint Admissions Exercise, with an estimated 36 per cent going to JCs and Millennia Institute, which also offers a pre-university education.
After news of the merger was announced in April 2017, Sabrina, who spent her first year in Jurong JC, had to move to Pioneer JC with other schoolmates like her who had to repeat their first year.
Four of the JCs that were making moves to different campuses had stopped taking in first-year students in 2018. These JCs — Serangoon, Tampines, Innova and Jurong — had their final batch of graduating students last year.
When Sabrina first heard about the merger, she was upset at being separated from her friends who were advancing to their second year at Jurong JC and she was nervous about starting over in a new environment.
“I was scared I would not be able able to make any good friends, or that I would be too shy, or would get judged for being retained,” she told TODAY.
It took time to adjust. For example, she had to take a longer time to travel from her home in Clementi to the Pioneer JC campus in Chua Chu Kang, with the journey by bus and train taking 15 minutes more as compared with the time required to get to her old school.
She missed the “homely” feel of Jurong JC, which had more greenery than the “brightly lit” and “foreign” Pioneer JC.
But a year later, Sabrina said that she has come to feel more at home at Pioneer JC.
“During the period when we were shifting schools, Pioneer JC made sure that we were comfortable by ensuring the teachers were here for us.
“While some Jurong JC teachers had also moved over, the Pioneer JC teachers assured me that they would be there to support me even though I had retained,” she said.
In order to help assimilate the Jurong JC students into their new environment, the students were given a campus tour and activities were held to allow those from Jurong and Pioneer to get to know one another. They were also briefed on the school cultures of both JCs and took part in discussions for the design of the new uniform for the merged JC, Jurong Pioneer JC.
Sabrina is hopeful that the new year will bring about a stronger school spirit and identity when the Jurong JC teachers and principal Hang Kim Hoo move to Jurong Pioneer JC, with Dr Hang as principal of the merged JC.
