Madam, MOE has, in the 10 years, granted much needed support to the special-needs students in Singapore. Higher funding and attention in curriculum, quality assurance and governance are some of the deeply appreciated support granted over the years.

MOE is working now on plans to continue raising the quality bar for the students in the SPED and mainstream primary and secondary schools. I ask that similar structured education support be extended to the post-secondary institutions of higher learning.

Many students with, for example, hearing impairment, dyslexia, ADHD, Asperger's syndrome, high-functioning autism, etc, have overcome many challenges to be qualified enough to proceed to institutions such as the ITE, polytechnics and universities.

Support for these students however is dependent on the vision and resolve of these various institutions. The quality and range of support is found to be inconsistent. Sometimes, the needed support, for example, in sign language interpretation is provided by student volunteers who themselves need to attend classes. These volunteers cannot be expected to volunteer when priorities such as their own examinations and examination preparations come in the way.

By comparison, one can easily conduct a desktop research to find that in many progressive education systems, Disability Support Offices are standard features and render services such as a complete student guidebook for disability, teacher resources, assistance in registration and orientation of persons with disabilities, application and counselling in classroom accommodations such as note-taking, sign interpreters, seat arrangements and liaison with the relevant faculty lecturers and tutors

The same type of education support can be found in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States and many other progressive systems. Singapore cannot expect to be a major global education player or a 21st Century education provider if no support is provided in a systemic and structured manner for those with special needs or disabilities.

Madam, I am confident that Singapore can develop its own brand of disability support offices through collaborating with the network of disability VWOs in its social service sector and the SPED sector.

We will be in a tight labour market for a long while. Every developed potential will not only contribute to their own financial independence, reducing Government's need to provide them welfare; they would also contribute to the economy by becoming part of our country's manpower asset.

Hence, the Disability Support Offices in the ITEs, polytechnics and universities should even have a larger vision to not only provide academic support but also consider working with the VWOs to provide employability assessments and training so that these persons could be gainfully employed once they graduate.