There's no way you would have guessed that Anderson Serangoon Junior College was Anderson and Serangoon JC merging, right?
Well, if you've been living under a rock, here's news for you: Eight JCs in Singapore will merge into four in 2019.
The merger is happening on the account that JCs are facing a decreasing intake due to shrinking population.
We don't even need to tell you which JCs have merged because the new names will tell you all you need to know:
- Anderson JC, Serangoon JC - Anderson Serangoon JC
- Yishun JC, Innova JC - Yishun Innova JC
- Tampines JC, Meridian JC - Tampines Meridian JC
- Jurong JC, Pioneer JC - Jurong Pioneer JC
Unimpressed
The new names, which were combined to "reflect the history and heritage” of the schools, didn't do much to impress Singaporeans for sure.
To arrive at the final decision to name the school as such, JC principals supposedly held sessions over the past year with stakeholders, such as College Advisory Committees, staff and alumni, on the possible outcomes, be it keeping their names, combining them or making a new one:
As one mainstream media in Singapore said:
"Speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday (Jan 10), Ms Liew Wei Li, MOE’s Deputy Director-General of Education (Schools) said the ministry did not reach the outcome “mechanically”. It was a “difficult decision” that was only decided “up to the last point”.
MOE kept in “close contact” with school leaders and received numerous letters and emails from the public.
“There were many voices, some loud, some louder, but there were some quiet voices as well… There was no way that everyone would be satisfied, however the decision,” said Ms Liew."
This was reflected in Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng's Facebook post as well, in which he also echoed the sentiments that the decision won't please everyone:
[related_story]Still weird to merge
The choice of combining names of both schools, however, has not gone down well with many Singaporeans, who felt more could be done about giving a unique name to the schools.
Oh well.
This echoes sentiments that were expressed when "new" names were given for primary schools that merged, as reported in Dec. 29 last year.
The new names were essentially chosen from one of each pair of schools that was to be merged.
JCs with higher cut-off points merged
It doesn't quite help that the issue of merging JCs hasn't been quite favourably looked upon.
JCs with the lowest cut-off points (except for Anderson JC) were spared, which meant elite schools such as Hwa Chong, Raffles and the JC-who-shall-not-be-pronounced-correctly Eunonia are left out from the merging exercise.
In any case, with the names finalised for the JCs, the next thing these new schools need to think about is coming up with a term for their student body as well.
Maybe Yishun Innova JC students might call themselves Yinnovians, for example? There's plenty of room for creative combinations. Plenty.
Top image adapted via Wikimedia Commons
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