Come Aug. 1, 2018, teachers in Singapore will have to pay for parking on school premises.

This applies to primary and secondary school teachers, as well as teachers in junior colleges.

Review in parking charges

In 2015, the Auditor-General Office’s (AGO) report highlighted that not imposing parking charges, or charging below market rate for the use of car parks, are tantamount to providing hidden subsidies for vehicle parking.

According to the Ministry of Education, it has since been working with Public Service Division and Ministry of Finance to "determine an appropriate treatment for staff parking in schools."

They have also added that this is in line with the clean wage policy:

"It has become increasingly clear that the current treatment of allowing school staff to park for free constitutes a taxable benefit, as the vast majority of school car parks are located near chargeable car parks and the car parks are intended for the use of staff and authorised visitors, with no access given to the general public. As such, in line with PSD’s clean wage policy, an appropriate season parking charge in schools will be imposed."

Since October 2017, all five polytechnics have started charging staff for parking on their premises.

So what are the new charges?

Those who drive cars will have to pay S$75 a month during school terms, and S$15 per month during the school holidays (June, November to December). This works out to S$720 a year for parking in uncovered lots.

The cost of parking in covered lots is S$100 a month during school terms, and S$20 per month during the school holidays, which means that the annual charges come up to S$960.

And for those who ride motorcycles, they will have to pay a total of S$123 a year for parking in uncovered lots and S$135 for covered lots.

Parking charges are applied uniformly for all schools regardless of location, but will not apply to visitors.

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How were these rates decided?

According to a statement made by MOE, they considered input from a professional valuer, and took reference from HDB season parking rates for non-residents in order to decide these rates.

They also took into account the restrictions on staff parking due to school car parks being reserved for school buses in the evening and on weekends, as well as the fluctuation in demand for parking between the school term and holidays.

Top photo from here

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