SINGAPORE - About 540,000 Singaporeans aged seven to 20 this year will each receive a one-off top-up of $200 to their Edusave account or Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA) in May.

"The top-up is part of the Household Support Package announced at Budget 2022 to provide families with additional support for their children's education-related expenses, and is in addition to the annual Edusave contribution that the Government makes," said the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Finance in a joint statement on Friday (April 29).

Unveiled by Finance Minister Lawrence Wong during his Budget speech in Parliament in February, the $560 million package aims to help Singaporean families to manage pressures of the cost of living by providing support through utilities rebates, top-ups of children's education accounts and vouchers for use at heartland shops and hawker stalls.

Funds in the Edusave account and PSEA can be used to pay for approved fees and  programmes. 

These include enrichment programmes organised by schools, miscellaneous fees, and the purchase of laptops or tablets for digital learning at secondary schools, junior colleges or the Millennia Institute.

Edusave account funds can be used to cover some expenses in primary and secondary school, and junior college or at Millennia Institute.

The funds in PSEA are meant to help defray the expenses of post-secondary education, including in polytechnics, Institute of Technical Education, as well as the six local universities.

The top-up will be credited directly into recipients' Edusave account or PSEA by the end of May, said the ministries.

No action is required from recipients.

The ministries added that parents of eligible recipients will receive e-notifications via their Singpass app, informing them of the successful top-up by end-May.

Parents without the Singpass app will be notified through SMS.

Ms Shelby Yeo, 18, is one student who will benefit from the top-up to her PSEA.

Ms Yeo, who is in the second year of a diploma course in information technology at Singapore Polytechnic, plans to use the additional funds in her PSEA to sign up for more courses on user experience design, her area of specialisation.

The funds would help her family manage the expenses for her education.

“I think I wouldn’t have been willing to spend on the courses if not for the $200 top-up,” she said, adding that instead of getting the money from her parents, she felt she had a responsibility to pay for any external courses she wanted.

Her father, 57, is a chef and her mother, 53, works as an office supervisor.

She has two elder sisters – one is 22 years old, an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, and the other is 26 and works in the information technology sector.

Said Ms Yeo: “With the top-up, I hope to learn how to further apply my programming knowledge to code efficient websites that are appealing to users.”

More information on the Edusave account and PSEA is available at MOE's Edusave website and MOE's PSEA website.

Those with inquiries about account balances can call MOE’s Edusave and PSEA hotline on 6260-0777.

They can also submit inquiries to MOE's "Ask MOE" virtual assistant or refer to the frequently asked questions section on MOE's website.