Travel agents ride school-trip wagon

Travel agents ride school-trip wagon

SINGAPORE - More students than ever are going on overseas school trips and travel agents have leapt to serve this growing market.

About 90,000 students go overseas with their schools each year on 3,500 "learning journeys", according to the Education Ministry.

These include exchange programmes, overseas community involvement programmes and trips related to subjects taught in school.

Some trips of over a week to more distant destinations can cost between $3,000 and $4,000 per child, but additional government funding for such trips has made all the difference in recent years.

Travel agents said demand has more than doubled from a decade ago and picked up sharply five years ago after the Education Ministry introduced the Trips for Internationalisation Experience grant for students who are Singapore citizens to go on overseas learning journeys. Schools can also tap the Opportunity Fund to subsidise those who need financial support.

More neighbourhood schools and primary schools are also organising overseas trips, and the brisk business has led some travel agents to create special departments catering to this group.

One of them, STA Travel, said it has been organising 130 trips every six months from 2011 to this year, double the number from 2005 to 2008.

CTC Travel has seen demand grow sharply every year, too. Said its senior vice-president for marketing and public relations, Ms Alicia Seah: "Five years ago, we managed about 20 groups of students. Last year, we organised almost 70 groups."

Demand from neighbourhood secondary schools has also gone up in recent years, with CTC Travel seeing business from these schools double compared to a decade ago.

The destinations vary across the school types, said travel agents.

STA Travel's group manager for educational travel Raymond Wong noted that neighbourhood schools tend to have more trips nearby with one or two trips a year to Europe or United States, whereas "well-known" schools have "almost an equal spread of regional and long-haul trips".

Countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and China remain the top destinations, but a growing number of schools are going further, especially independent schools and those offering the integrated programme, said Ms Michelle Yin, marketing communications manager for Chan Brothers Travel.

"The more well-known independent schools do travel a lot and most of the time, to places further away like the United States, Europe and Australia," she said.

Chan Brothers has seen demand for school trips grow by 15 per cent to 20 per cent each year over the past five years and now has a dedicated education centre.

The travel agents said student groups are different from leisure travellers and school trips call for extra logistics, if the intinerary involves liaising with rural schools or overseas universities, said Ms Yin.

Ms Seah said with more primary school pupils travelling, it is essential to provide extra care and effort to keep them happy and occupied so that they do not miss home.

Schools which organise overseas trips for students say they pick the destinations based on learning objectives or the experience students will get.

"It is not the distance travelled, but the relevance of the experience to support their holistic development that matters," said Hwa Chong Institution's dean of student development Ng Seaw Choon.

"If it is worth the investment, the school will seek the means to support the trip."

Pioneer Junior College's principal Tan-Kek Lee Yong said available funding has enabled schools like hers to consider trips to the US and Europe, but the choice depended on the teaching objectives.

Apart from trips related to a subject or community service, her JC organises overseas student leadership exchanges and work shadowing programmes.

"Students benefit from these trips as they are powerful learning experiences... Through the exposure and interaction with their overseas counterparts, students are able to better understand and appreciate Singapore's place in the world," said Mrs Tan.

Ms Lim Chye Ling, 35, head of the Normal course at Kent Ridge Secondary, said an overseas service learning trip to Surabaya, Indonesia, helped her students understand the difficulties of poor living conditions.

"It provided an opportunity for them to appreciate their life in Singapore and also strengthened their will to never give up so easily in life," she said.

The cost for such trips depends on the destination, duration, number of students and the itinerary.

Trips to the United States and Europe lasting over a week can cost up to $3,000 or $4,000 each for some students even after subsidies, said travel agents.

The bulk is for air tickets, accommodation and ground transport.

Students have to pay a minimum of 20 per cent of the cost of a trip, after subsidies.Some parents said they are unwilling to spend if the price is too high.

Madam Susan Ong, 47, a part-time administrative assistant married to an assistant manager, said her daughter's secondary school had a trip to London which cost more than she could afford and she was relieved her daughter did not go.

"That trip was too expensive. I've never been on such an expensive trip myself," she said.

Others felt school trips provide learning opportunities children would not normally get on a family holiday.

Madam Mabel Khung, 39, a housewife married to a businessman, said she encourages her three children to go for school trips.

"It is good for the kids to be away so they can learn to be independent and make their own decisions. They are very sheltered here," she said.

Sales promoter Karen Wong, 44, a single mother, said her 11-year-old daughter, Sandrine Ho, was able to take her first trip beyond Malaysia when she went on a week-long school immersion programme to Bangkok in June with her school, Admiralty Primary.

"It was her first time taking an aeroplane and she was so excited," said Madam Wong, who paid $30 for the trip after subsidies and deduction from Edusave.

While there are subsidies available for students from low-income families, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education Lim Biow Chuan said some families may be too shy to ask for them.

He suggested schools look into less expensive ways to provide overseas learning experiences.

"Even if the parents have a decent income, they may have other pressing expenses like medical expenses for the sick and elderly or additional expenses for a child with special needs.

"This can result in missed opportunities for the student because he or she does not wish to apply for the subsidy," he said.


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