Invictus Waives All Fees For Families In Need
Invictus International School is offering unemployed parents affected by Covid-19 a free education for the rest of this academic year. The school will waive fees for anyone within its community who has lost their job due to the Covid-19 virus. It will also review the fees of any parents who have taken salary cuts, and offers to extend further financial support to expat families at other schools.
The founder of Invictus, which has campuses in Dempsey and Sentosa, has made an unprecedented move to match the unprecedented times facing parents within Singapore. John Fearon, who launched Invictus to be one of Singapore's most affordable schools, has taken the lead with his offer to support families who are struggling to pay tuition fees.
In a letter to parents, Fearon said:
"Invictus has chosen to support our Singapore expat community by offering to waive academic fees for this academic year (2019-20) to parents that have lost their job because of the Covid-19 virus, and Invictus is open to reviewing the fees of parents that have had to take salary cuts based on one to one assessment with the school.
"This community support offer will also be extended to the wider Singapore expat community, based on our capacity."
Invictus enrols around 400 students in Grades 1-8 at its Dempsey campus, and up to 75 students in Grades 1-2 at its Sentosa campus; it will open a new Centrium secondary school in August. Annual fees are $17,000 payable in five instalments of $3,400.
Explaining his decision to waive fees, Fearon said: "Invictus would like to support people in their times of need. We are fortunate to have had parents' support and would like to extend that same support back to the community.
"We are prepared to offer this same offer to parents affected by the Covid-19 virus even if they are not existing parents and this offer will not have strings attached."
While the directive from the Ministry of Education is to keep all local schools open and move to one day of Home-Based Learning (HBL) a week, Singapore's international schools have responded individually to the Covid-19 virus.
Invictus currently remains open with one day of home schooling per week.
There is a growing number of international schools including Tanglin Trust School, Dover Court, Canadian International School, Singapore American School and International Community School (ICS) that have already decided, unilaterally, to close their campuses and move to online learning for a limited time only. Invictus was the first school to announce any reduction or waiver of fees.
On Friday, White Lodge announced that it would waive Term 3 fees for parents who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 virus. The group, which runs five pre-schools and three childcare centres across Singapore and the Melbourne Specialist International School (MSIS), is also reducing term fees by 10% for all families. Read more.
Read more: John Fearon, A Game Changer In Education?
