City College

City College is a socially driven business based in Singapore, focused on youth, financial inclusion, and empowering communities through education. Founded in 2002, the school began by offering a group of 20 students subsidized tuition classes under voluntary welfare organisation City Harvest Community Services Association. As the organization interacted with students, they realized those who took the GCE examinations as private candidates were not adequately prepared. Furthermore, statistics released by Singapore's Ministry of Education between 1999 and 2002 revealed that close to 40% of the 7,000 private GCE candidates in Singapore each year failed every subject. Seeking to reverse the trend, City College decided to focus on helping this group of students by using non-linear teaching methods. The organization grew into a full school, City Harvest Education Centre (CHEC), in 2005, offering preparatory courses for both GCE ‘O’ and ‘N’ Level examinations. Since then, the school has noted that the performance of private GCE candidates in Singapore has increased by 10%. In 2007, the national average of private candidates hit a record 89% - the highest in 14 years. The same year, 98.4% of our students obtained the GCE 'O' Level certificate.

The main objective of the organization is to further advance education for children and youths through the conduct and management of educational and development programmes, courses, activities and events including tuition services and student care centres. Also, the organization focuses on raising awareness and promoting arts amongst children and youths, performing arts related education and training. The City College classroom experience involves the creative use of graphics, games, video clips and music to bring concepts to live. The City College curriculum is striving to provide their students with a learning environment that supports all-round development.

City School's experienced faculty delivers their curricula and enrichment programmes in a cohesive, integrated manner to nurture our students into competent, confident and well-rounded global citizens. Besides creating a classroom experience that is fun and interactive, the teachers also go the extra mile to serve also as mentors, counselors and friends to the student body.  With an average student-to-teacher ratio of 25:1, City College teachers not only have the desire but also the capacity to be creative in the classroom and to be positive personal role models. Demonstrating real-life applications for classroom topics, they help students see the relevance of the curriculum and acquire a concrete grasp of otherwise abstract concepts. But more than teach, our teachers are also mentors with whom students can relate on matters of life in the wide world.

When asked of the motivation of the school, the spokesperson noted “Profit is not its motive. If it was, City College would admit all students that comes through its doors. Instead it uses pre-admission interviews to gauge candidates’ conviction and interest on the pursuit of education.” City College has also established a SG$2,000 education grant per student to keep the fees affordable and competitive among the private schools. They gradually built a reputation of quality education first. To further assist students, they allow students to pay in installments, offering needy students bursaries. This revolutionizes the way private schools tend to put commercial interest above the students’ needs. City College sends staff and students on numerous community projects which explores different ways to give back to society by helping the disadvantaged, raising funds for the needy and providing education and teachers’ training in remote places.

In addition, City College’s founder Kenny Low was presented with the SIP-Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2007 for his vision and model to meet social gaps. In the same year, he was also the 1st Runner Up for the DHL Young Entrepreneur for Sustainability (YES) Award. He is often invited to share about social innovations and his personal experiences to local and international audiences. He has spoken at local tertiary institutions, a Learning Styles Conference in Shanghai and Beijing (China) in 2008 and at the Northeast Asian Network (NEAN) Yonsei Leadership Forum in Seoul (Korea) and the Social Enterprise Summit (Hong Kong) in 2009.

There are plans to send a group of students over to Green School, Bali and School of Creativity, Hong Kong in 2010 to experience learning in a different culture and bring back key learning points. These trips will be affordable to most but for some students, they would require financial assistance (approx. US$2,000 per student) to make the trip a reality. For those who are interested, please contact Avantage Ventures or else the City School directly.