1 Private Education Act/ EduTrust Certification Scheme

The Private Education Act was gazetted in October 2009 to provide the Council for Private Education (CPE) with the legislative powers to regulate the private education sector more effectively and improve its quality. CPE will implement a mandatory registration tier to enhance the standards that private education providers will need to adhere to. As required under the Enhanced Registration Framework, Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine undertakes to inform CPE and its students of any change in ownership or management within 14 working days.

A quality assurance framework, known as EduTrust, will also be introduced to provide a quality differentiation mechanism. (Please refer to CPE website) Under the EduTrust Certification Scheme, private education providers must adopt a Fee Protection Scheme with the CPE-appointed service providers and provide medical insurance coverage for hospitalisation and related medical treatment throughout the entire course duration.

Under the Fee Protection Scheme, Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine has put in place an insurance arrangement that ensures fees paid by students to the school are insured by HSBC Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Limited, a CPE-appointed service provider. The insurance protection serves to protect the students' fees in the event a private education institution (PEI) is unable to continue operations due to insolvency, and/or regulatory closure. Furthermore, the FPS protects the student if the PEI fails to pay penalties or return fees to the student arising from judgments made against it by the Singapore courts.

The FPS is compulsory for all local and international students taking courses at PEIs seeking EduTrust certification. FPS applies to all courses with duration of more than one month or 50 hours.

Tuition Fee Protection Scheme (Policy)

3 Medical Insurance Coverage

Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine has put in place Medical Insurance under which all its students (except those specifically allowed to opt out under EduTrust Certification guidelines) will be insured by Group Hospital & Surgical Insurance.

The Group Hospital & Surgical Insurance is an expense reimbursement plan with a limit of up to S$20,000 per year. It will help to reduce the financial burden of the insured student in the event that he/she needs to be hospitalised in government/restructured hospitals.

Singaporean/PR and non-Student’s Pass international students who are already covered by their own medical insurance plan (with an annual limit not less than S$20,000) may be exempted from the plan provided by Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Students signing a new PEI-Student contract can opt out from the medical insurance coverage by indicating in the contract and providing a copy of their medical insurance policy. CPE has mandated that students who opt out must produce their medical insurance policy for verification by the PEI. Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine will only exempt students who submit a copy of their medical insurance policy for opting out.

Documents for download:
-Master Cert of Group Medical Insurance
-Product Summary on Group Hospital and Surgical Benefits
-Product Summary on Group Personal Accident
-Group Hospital & Surgical Claim Form
-Group Personal Accident Claim Form

4 Student Contract

The Private Education Institution-Student Contract clearly states the following:

• Course title with modules or subjects clearly listed
• Date of commencement and completion of each intake/course
• Scheduled holidays
• Examinations and/or assignment dates for each intake/course
• Name of organisation awarding/conferring the results and certificates
• Fee collection schedule
• Withdrawal, transfer & refund policy

For a sample of standard Student Contract, please refer to CPE website.