ONE STEP CLOSER TO OUR CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE AT NEW SITE:
NGEE ANN KONGSI'S $2M DONATION!

1. Good Morning
   
   
2. I am pleased to welcome you to Pathlight School. My fellow volunteers, staff and students are very honoured to have with us first-time visitors like our newly appointed Senior Minister of State for Education, Ms Grace Fu and all our special guests from Ngee Ann Kong Si. I hope you will get to know the Pathlight and its parent charity body, the Autism Resource Centre (ARC) better today and continue to support our mission.
   
   
3. Pathlight is not only the first special school in Singapore that focuses on autism, it is also one of the first to provide a special blend of life skills training and mainstream academics. Typical special schools in the past offer life skills training and typical mainstream schools focus primarily on academics. Pathlight runs 3 education tracks and more than 80% of the students will be equipped to take the national examinations like PSLE, GCE N level and O level.
   
   
4. Due to our vision and our rapid growth, Pathlight School has been privileged to build bigger and better facilities at its new site at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10 with the approval and support of the Ministry of Education and other agencies such as the National Council of Social Service. Under the leadership of Ms Loh Wai Mooi, Chairman of the Fundraising Committee and other key volunteers, we are very blessed to have raised a total of $7.5 million. We are especially grateful to Ngee Ann Kongsi for its donation of $2 million and to other  donors  such as the  Estate of Khoo Teck Puat , Shaw Foundation, Lee Foundation and  many  other s. The generous donations have relieved the anxiety of not raising the funds on time for the constructions. They also allowed the staff and volunteers to focus on our core business – to provide quality education and life readiness training for the autism community. Thank you for that.
   
   
5. Getting the funds and building facilities are only the beginning steps to making a difference in the special needs community. What is more critical is the development and delivery of quality outcome-focused programmes and our ability to inspire, attract and retain professionals with heads, hearts and hands in the right places.
   
   
6. Our dream for the new facilities is build a regional Centre of Excellence for Autism to model and share approaches to effectively support people with autism throughout their lives. We will make use of the 1.6 hectare-sized land to build a primary school, a secondary school, an early intervention unit and a training and consultancy centre to train caregivers and professionals. About 600 children and youths will be served in the school and early intervention centre. More than 1000 caregivers and teachers and therapists from Singapore and the region will be trained by ARC’s Training and Consultancy arm. There will be a new IT School, Daily Living Unit and new vocational training worksites. We will seek to ensure that these facilities are put to good use to run quality services that will transform the lives of those who pass through the gates.
   
   
7. Today is a doubly special day. The United Nations has declared April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day. People with autism are generally weaker in social skills, language and imagination or can be rigid in their behaviour. About 24,000 Singaporeans are estimated to have an autism spectrum disorder, some mild and others more severe. Once diagnosed, early and effective intervention and education can make a huge difference in the development of children with autism. 10% of the autism population is estimated to possess special talents versus 1% of the typical population. Here in Pathlight today, you will get to see special talents in the performing arts, computers, drawing and music. But whether they have autism or not, all of them are sons and daughters of the Singapore family and our mission here is to give them a quality education so they can move on to further studies or employment.
   
   
8. On behalf of the students and their families, thank you for helping us further our mission. Thank you for making a difference.