SPED School Fees in Singapore: What Each School Charges

Dictionary: SPED · SPED FAS · MOE

Eleven schools publish no fee figure on their own school pages. They are named further down, plainly, because knowing which schools you have to phone is worth as much as knowing the numbers.

If your household income is low, the fee may not be what you pay. The Special Education Financial Assistance Scheme (SPED FAS) covers 100 per cent of miscellaneous fees, the non-tuition part of a school’s monthly bill, for eligible Singapore Citizen students, and at secondary level the school fee in the table as well, plus textbooks, attire, meals and transport.

What each SPED school charges

Every figure below is the one the school or its operator publishes on its own site. Where a school runs several campuses, the same fee covers them all.

Autism, national curriculum (the same syllabus mainstream schools use). The vocational track in these tables is the work-skills stage that follows the academic years.

Autism with intellectual disability, and multiple disabilities

Figures as of August 2026, except APSN Katong’s. APSN publishes that pair in a public-talk FAQ dated 2023, and no newer figure appears on the school’s own page, so treat it as the school’s last published number rather than a fresh one.

Two rows carry a caveat worth reading. Maitri publishes a year-by-year schedule rather than a flat rate for Permanent Residents, S$250 a month in 2026 and S$280 in 2027, so the fee rises during your child’s time at the school rather than holding at the rate you were quoted. Maitri also states both its figures as full-month rates, payable if the child attends five or more days in the month. AWWA states its S$86 as the fee “for students with autism”, which is the only fee figure it publishes.

The eleven schools that publish no fee on their own school pages

These schools carry no fee figure on their own school pages, as of August 2026:

• APSN Chaoyang School, APSN Tanglin School and APSN Delta Senior School
• Metta School
• MINDS Towner Gardens School, MINDS Lee Kong Chian Gardens School, MINDS Fernvale Gardens School and MINDS Woodlands Gardens School
• CPAS School West and CPAS School East, counted separately, as our directory lists them
• Lighthouse School

That is five operators and eleven of the 26 government-funded SPED schools in our own directory of SPED schools, which counts each campus separately. A parent comparing MINDS against Pathlight can read one school’s fee off a web page and has to telephone for the other.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) does not fill the gap either. Its school fees page groups SPED schools with independent schools and polytechnics as schools that “charge varying fees”, and sends you to “their respective websites for the latest fee information”.

Why the spread is so wide is a question MOE has answered. SPED schools “charge different fees to meet the diverse and specialised learning needs of students, as they customise their programmes and services according to the disability profile of their students”. That was written in a 2021 parliamentary reply, and the reasoning still describes the pattern in the table above.

Why you may have seen S$250, and what changed

If you have read that SPED schools charge up to S$250 a month, that figure is real, it is government-published, and it is from March 2021. One of the places you may have read it is this site: our own directory page still quotes all three of that reply’s bands, S$250 included, dated to 2021.

The 2021 reply said the majority of SPED schools then charged S$14 to S$20 a month for Singapore Citizens, three charged around S$60 to S$70, and six charged between S$120 and S$250.

Then MOE’s March 2024 infosheet said the maximum monthly fee chargeable to Singaporean students at nine named schools would fall from S$150 to S$90, taking effect by mid-2025, with about 3,500 students benefiting. The nine were AWWA School at Napiri, both Eden School campuses, Pathlight School, all three Rainbow Centre schools, St. Andrew’s Autism School and St. Andrew’s Mission School.

Compare that ceiling against the table. Every school on MOE’s 2024 list now publishes a top Singapore Citizen rate of S$85, S$86 or S$90, at or under the new ceiling, and several of them still charge S$60 at primary level or on a multiple-disabilities programme. S$90 is the highest Singapore Citizen figure anywhere in the table. The S$250 also predates a further cut the infosheet implies without describing: by March 2024 the maximum chargeable was already S$150, before the reduction to S$90.

At the other end, no school publishing a Citizen fee now publishes one below S$20, where the 2021 majority band started at S$14. The point is that a 2021 figure is not a 2026 figure, either way.

SPED FAS: who qualifies, and what it actually pays

SPED FAS is MOE’s financial assistance scheme for students in government-funded SPED schools.

Who qualifies. Singapore Citizen students, who are the students MOE names for this scheme, from households with a monthly gross household income of S$4,000 or less, or a monthly per capita income of S$1,000 or less. Gross household income is the income of all family members in the same household, added up. Per capita income is that figure divided by the number of those family members, so one income supporting five people can qualify where the same income supporting three does not. Both ceilings took effect in January 2026, raised from S$3,000 and S$750.

What it pays, and it is not the same at every level. At primary level: a 100 per cent subsidy of miscellaneous fees, which MOE counts alongside school fees in a school’s monthly bill, plus free textbooks and school attire, meal subsidies covering seven meals a school week, and a public transport subsidy of S$21 a month or up to S$252 a year. At secondary level: a 100 per cent subsidy of school and miscellaneous fees, the same textbooks, attire and transport, and meal subsidies covering ten meals a school week.

So a secondary-level family on SPED FAS stops paying the school fee in the table. At primary level the fact sheet covers the miscellaneous part and not the school fee, and no school publishes the split between the two, so ask the school what is left to pay. The rest of the help is the same at both levels: textbooks, attire, seven or ten meals a school week, and S$21 a month of public transport.

The fact sheet lists benefits at primary and secondary level only. It says nothing about the vocational track, which is the S$90 rate at three schools, so a family on that track should ask the school which list applies.

One tension worth knowing about, because you may be told otherwise. MOE’s October 2025 press release puts SPED FAS in a combined row with two other schemes and describes their provisions as “100% fee subsidies (no change)”, with no split by level. MOE’s SPED FAS fact sheet, effective January 2026, is the scheme’s own document and is the more specific of the two. Ask the school which applies to your child’s level before you budget around either.

How to apply. Online, or download the SPED FAS application form, or collect a paper copy at your child’s school. Completed paper forms go directly to the school. The SPED application process is separate from this and happens first.

The naming problem, and why it matters when you ask

Most SPED schools do not use the words “SPED FAS” on the pages where they describe help with fees. Two publish its income thresholds without calling them that: Pathlight under no scheme name at all, and Maitri under the mainstream MOE FAS.

Pathlight publishes its own means-tested waiver, decided by checking household income, at exactly the SPED FAS thresholds of S$4,000 gross household income and S$1,000 gross per capita income, and names no scheme. At Eden it is a “school fees subsidy” with a full waiver plus uniform, shoe and meal subsidies. St. Andrew’s Autism School considers requests “on a case-by-case basis”. Maitri does name a scheme, but the mainstream “MOE Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS)” rather than the SPED one.

Two schools name SPED FAS outright, and they do not agree. APSN Katong’s page states the current criteria, S$4,000 gross household income or S$1,000 per capita. CPAS names the scheme too, and publishes the older ceilings of S$3,000 and S$750, the figures MOE replaced in January 2026.

So when you ask a school about help with fees, ask in these words: is this SPED FAS, or the school’s own fund? A “no” to the school’s own criteria is not a “no” from MOE, and a school page quoting a S$3,000 ceiling may simply be a page nobody has updated.

If you do not qualify for SPED FAS, that is not the end of it. MOE’s fact sheet says you can approach your child’s school about its school-based financial assistance, and that the school will evaluate the request case by case.

Getting to school: which transport subsidy applies

Transport help does not come from one place, and the difference between the routes is large enough to matter.

If your child takes public transport, SPED FAS includes the S$21 a month public transport subsidy listed above, up to S$252 a year.

If your child takes a school bus, two MOE documents point different ways, and it is worth knowing both before you ask.

MOE’s October 2025 press release puts SPED FAS in a row with the mainstream scheme and the independent school bursary, and gives that row an enhanced school bus subsidy of 70 per cent of the monthly fare, primary level only, from the 2026 academic year. MOE’s SPED FAS fact sheet, effective January 2026, lists no school bus subsidy in either of its benefit lists. It names the Enabling Transport Subsidy from the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) separately, under additional assistance a child “may also receive”, “if he/she is taking school bus to and from school”. A 2023 parliamentary reply says the same: for SPED schools, eligible students taking school bus services can apply for the Enabling Transport Subsidy, administered by SG Enable. The two documents were published a year apart and nothing reconciles them, so ask the school which subsidy it applies for on your child’s behalf, and at what rate.

The Enabling Transport Subsidy (ETS) covers up to 80 per cent of the transport fee, and how much you get depends on citizenship, per capita household income, whether your child uses a wheelchair, and the fee itself. You do not apply directly. The school or social service agency arranging the transport runs the means test and submits the request to SG Enable for you.

Do not take the income ceiling from the first page you find. Three published pages give three different numbers. SG Enable’s own Enabling Guide says a per capita monthly household income of S$4,800 and below, for both Citizens and Permanent Residents. Maitri’s page says S$3,600 for Citizens and S$2,600 for Permanent Residents. CPAS’s page says S$2,600 and S$1,800, under a different scheme name, “SG Enable VWO Transport Subsidies”, which its page never ties to the ETS.

That same Enabling Guide page also says MSF would raise the income criteria and subsidy rates from 1 July 2026, and does not publish the revised figures. That date has already passed, so the S$4,800 on it may be out of date as you read this. Since the school submits the application anyway, the school is the one to ask, and it is a fair question to ask which figure they are working from.

One number no school site and no government page publishes is what the bus itself costs before any subsidy. Pathlight’s FAQ says it uses “an outsourced school bus operator that is able to serve island-wide” and that the operator contacts parents at registration, with no fare quoted. Budget for it as an unknown until the operator tells you.

This is all separate from the Persons with Disabilities Concession Card, which is a personal public transport concession rather than help with a school bus.

Pathlight School fees

Pathlight charges Singapore Citizens S$60 a month in primary school, S$85 in secondary and S$90 on the vocational track, and Permanent Residents S$350 across all three. School fees cover student insurance.

On subsidies, Pathlight’s position is that no student deemed suitable for the school will be denied an education for financial reasons, and families meeting its criteria pay less than the listed fees, some with a full waiver.

Admission criteria, curriculum and the full financial assistance wording are on the Pathlight School admissions guide, which goes further into all three than this page does.

If your school is not on the list with a figure

Phone or email the school and ask for the current monthly fee for your child’s citizenship, level and programme. Those three details change the answer, so give all three. Schools route these questions differently, Pathlight to its Student Affairs Team and Maitri to its accounts department, so start with the general enquiries line if no fee contact is listed.

Then ask the second question separately: what financial assistance is available, and is it SPED FAS or the school’s own scheme? The answer decides which criteria apply to you.

If your child will take a school bus, ask which transport subsidy the school applies for, and which income ceiling it uses.

Sources: MOE’s school fees page, its SPED FAS fact sheet, its 2021 parliamentary reply on the affordability of SPED, its March 2024 infosheet on enhancements to the SPED sector, its October 2025 press release on financial assistance schemes, and its 2023 parliamentary reply on school bus fares; SG Enable’s Enabling Guide pages on education subsidies, the Enabling Transport Subsidy and the Persons with Disabilities Concession Card; our own SPED schools directory, for the count of 26 government-funded schools; and the published pages of every school named on this page. Pages read in August 2026. School fees are reviewed by the schools themselves and government income ceilings change, so check with the school before you plan around any figure here.

This page explains published school fees and government schemes. It is not financial advice. For your family’s own circumstances, speak to your child’s school or to MOE.