Children from lower-income families would bear the heavier burden if schools are closed due to the tighter restrictions, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Friday, March 27 during an interview.

PM Lee also revealed that the Ministry of Education had found that long-term absenteeism rates in schools have already crept up during the Covid-19 pandemic.

His remarks were made to Singapore's media at the Istana on the Resilience Budget.

Schools serve vital role during Covid-19 pandemic

Lee said that schools serve a vital role in the Covid-19 crisis when he addressed the possibility of school closures.

“Because school is not just going to school and attending class and come home. It is also a place where you socialise, where you mix, where the teachers guide you, where you get the enrichment classes,” PM Lee said.

“That is how we level up our kids and make sure that the people from less advantaged families are well taken care of and have a chance to level up.”

He added “the kid is going to be put at a disadvantage” once enrichment stops and with teachers and parents unable to compensate for that lost time.

Government carefully mulling school closures

Lee said this was one reason why the government is carefully mulling the closure of schools, whenever it is asked why Singapore has not closed schools like other countries have done.

Lee also explained to an O-Levels female student, who had penned an essay addressed to him urging for school closures to “solve this problem”, that schools can be safe places that provide an important service which would aid both parents and students.

He said: "If you do not have (the schools) open, it does not mean that your problem has gone away, because where do the kids go?"

"Those who have parents who can look after them at home — well, okay they ‘guai guai’ (‘obediently’) sit at home, do homework, no computer games."

He added that those without parental care at home may head to the video arcade or roam around in shops and put them at greater risk of being infected with Covid-19.

Covid-19 clusters in schools

The focus on schools was due to questions being raised after it emerged that there are two new clusters at the PAP Community Foundation Sparkletots preschool at Fengshan in Bedok North and the Dover Court International School.

Staff members and parents make up most of the confirmed cases.

PM Lee said that the government is watching these developments “very carefully”.

Lee said: “But I think we should look at schools as individual schools rather than one whole system. Just as we look at workplaces as individual workplaces, rather than one whole work system, and if a workplace has a problem, we deal with that. We confine and we rub out that cluster, but it does not mean that I must shut the whole system down.

And in response to another question on the long-term impact of Covid-19 on lower-income households, PM Lee said help from the government will always go to the group that needs it most.

He said this was why Singapore has always put more resources into ComCare, social work agencies and the community and geared help towards household assistance.

Top photo via Runner Kao video