About 7% of mainstream school students have special educational needs
Minister for Education Desmond Lee confirmed in Parliament that about 7% of students in mainstream schools have special educational needs, with the proportion stable over three years. Schools deploy a whole-school support ecosystem including specially trained teachers and SEN Officers.
- About 7% of mainstream school students have reported special educational needs — a proportion stable over the past three years.
- Schools deploy a tiered whole-school support model, including 5 to 10 Teachers trained in Special Needs (TSNs) per school.
- No data gaps flagged; Ministry outlined structured intervention programmes but did not detail staffing ratios for SEN Officers.
About seven per cent of the student population in mainstream schools have reported special educational needs (SEN), Minister for Education Desmond Lee disclosed in Parliament on 2 March 2026, adding that the proportion has remained stable over the past three years.
The figures were provided in a written reply to a question filed by Workers' Party MP for Sengkang GRC Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik.
Mr Abdul Muhaimin had sought clarity on two fronts: the current proportion of students with SEN enrolled in mainstream schools, and how the Ministry ensures teachers are adequately equipped to support these students without compromising the learning needs of the broader student population.
Mr Lee's reply outlined a layered, institution-wide framework that distributes responsibility across different tiers of school personnel.
Mr Lee said schools adopt "a whole-school approach to support teaching and learning of all students, including those with SEN."
This ecosystem of support, the Minister noted, encompasses school leaders, key personnel overseeing Case Management Teams, Teachers trained in Special Needs (TSNs), subject teachers, and SEN Officers — each with distinct but complementary roles within the school environment.
On the question of teacher preparedness, Mr Lee drew a distinction between baseline competencies and deeper specialised expertise. While all teachers are equipped with foundational knowledge and strategies to teach classrooms with diverse student needs, each school is staffed with approximately five to ten TSNs who carry deeper expertise.
These TSNs are positioned not only to support students with more complex needs directly, but to share best practices with their colleagues. The Minister also noted that ongoing professional learning is provided to help teachers build confidence and strengthen their skills in supporting students with SEN.
At the primary school level, the Ministry has gone further by resourcing every primary school with additional teachers trained to carry out targeted intervention programmes.
One such programme is TRANsition Support for InTegration, known as TRANSIT, which places Primary 1 students identified with social and behavioural needs into smaller class sizes of up to ten pupils. The aim is to help these students develop foundational self-management skills as they begin their formal schooling journey.
The Ministry also highlighted the School-based Dyslexia Remediation (SDR) Programme, through which specially trained teachers support Primary 3 and 4 students with dyslexia using explicit and systematic instruction.
Mr Lee described this as encompassing "phonics teaching, sight word recognition and reading comprehension strategies," delivered in classes of four to six students to allow for focused, targeted engagement.
The Minister noted that the literacy skills reinforced in these sessions are simultaneously beneficial for all students in the regular English Language classroom, suggesting a degree of cross-applicability in the pedagogical strategies deployed.
Some students with SEN may also be placed in parallel pull-out small classes for learning support in English and Mathematics, where they learn alongside other students with weaker language and literacy skills — an arrangement that the Ministry appears to use as an integrative mechanism rather than one of strict segregation by diagnosis.
Beyond the classroom, mainstream schools are staffed with SEN Officers who provide learning and behavioural support for students experiencing social-behavioural challenges and adjustment difficulties.
Mr Lee noted that this support may be rendered in class, or in individual or small group settings depending on the student's needs. He further clarified that more SEN Officers are deployed to schools with a higher number of students with SEN, suggesting a needs-based allocation model rather than a uniform staffing formula.
The question comes as Singapore continues to navigate the inclusion of students with diverse learning needs within a mainstream education structure that is simultaneously expected to be academically rigorous.
The stable seven per cent figure, while providing some assurance of consistency, also underscores the scale of the task — with tens of thousands of students across the system requiring some degree of additional support from teaching staff who must balance those needs against broader classroom demands.
Mr Lee's reply did not address whether the current number of TSNs and SEN Officers is considered sufficient relative to growing enrolment trends, nor did it outline measurable outcomes from programmes such as TRANSIT or the SDR Programme. Those figures, if tracked, were not included in the Parliamentary record.
