Overseas Family School to shut down campus for online schooling from August 2015 Singapore’s top international school, Overseas Family School or commonly known as OFS, made an outrageous declaration yesterday that they are doing away with classroom teaching and are going to teach their entire curriculum online, thus becoming the 1st IB Word School in the world to implement such a new technique. The school which is currently situated in the city’s centre has decided to carry out this new tool from the start of the new academic year in August next year. Such a news has sparked major outbursts from various educationalists and parents and teachers from around the world. Educational guru, Neil Samuel from the Ministry of Education of Singapore has stated that it is a “horrifying statement made by the school and is very disrespectful to this community as a school is like a place of worship. This was not expected from Singapore’s leading international school.” However, Principal Will Migest has expressed his deep joy in his new concept which was actually not an unanimous decision by the entire school. He told that he is “looking forward to this new phase of OFS”. Most of the schools’ teachers are against this decision and many of them have resigned. Psychology teacher, Blaine Mikaelson stated that students will not be able to educate themselves through online softwares as they will not be able to self-motivate themselves and will not get hands-on experience on various subjects. He also mentioned that many students will find it difficult to enter universities. His son currently in Grade 1 told that he would miss seeing his friends and playing with them during lunch hours. As a parent and as a teacher, he believes that too much of working online can deteriorate the child’s health and the brain will start to react differently which will make the kids very unsocial. The innovation of the software is set to start next week to make it available before June 2015. But by the end, no students will be there to learn.
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