Raffles Institution
Raffles Institution is an independent educational institution in Singapore. Founded in 1823, it is the oldest school in the country. It provides secondary education for boys only from Year 1 to Year 4, and pre-university education for both boys and girls in Year 5 and Year 6. Since 2007, RI and its affiliated school Raffles Girls' School have been offering the six-year Raffles Programme, which allows students to skip the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level examinations and proceed to take the Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-Level examinations at the end of Year 6.
RI is notable for having produced 96 President's Scholars, three presidents, four prime ministers and chief ministers, four deputy prime ministers, four speakers of Parliament, many Cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament, as well as many chief executive officers of statutory boards, agencies and state-owned companies. Its alumni includes former Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, former Chief Ministers David Marshall and Lim Yew Hock as well as former Presidents Yusof Ishak, Benjamin Sheares and Wee Kim Wee. Robert Kuok, Southeast Asia's wealthiest man at the turn of the 21st century, is also an alumnus.
RI has one of the highest admission rates to top universities such as the Ivy League and Oxbridge. It had the highest number of admissions to the University of Cambridge in the world, with 48 students receiving offers in the 2022 admissions cycle, while 52 were accepted for Oxford and Cambridge combined in 2021, and 77 in 2022.
History
Foundation
RI was founded by Stamford Raffles, who proposed the establishment of "the Institution" or "Singapore Institution" at a meeting he convened on 1 April 1823. Raffles wanted to establish a college for the people of Singapore since the founding of the colony, and wrote on 12 January 1823 that a site for a planned college had been selected. His intention was to provide education for the children of Malay Ruler and leaders in the new British colony of Singapore as well as the company's employees and others who wished to learn the local languages. Another objective was to "collect the scattered literature and traditions of the country" so that the most important may be published and circulated. Raffles referred to the plan as his "last public act"; by setting up the Institution, he hoped it that it could, through its generations of alumni, serve as "the means of civilising and bettering the conditions of millions" beyond Singapore. Those involved in the plan for the Institution included Reverend Robert Morrison, Sophia Raffles, William Farquhar, William Marsden and Robert Sparke Hutchings. It was initially suggested that the Institution should merge with the Anglo-Chinese College founded by Morrison in Malacca, but this plan did not materialise. Raffles contributed S$2,000, secured a grant of S$4,000 from the British East India Company and, together with subscriptions from other individuals, raised funds totalling S$17,495 for the project. He drafted the curriculum, and set up the structure for the board of trustees that included William Wilberforce.The original building of RI was sited on Bras Basah Road and it was designed by engineer Philip Jackson. Raffles laid the foundation stone of the building on 5 June 1823, a few days before he left Singapore for the last time on 9 June. No classes were held while the building was under construction, but the project stalled and the building was left unfinished for some time. Raffles' vision was also not shared by John Crawfurd, the British Resident of Singapore, who felt the scale of the project excessive, and that the government should focus its efforts on elementary education instead. In 1835, a group of European merchants raised money for the Raffles Monument Fund to commemorate Raffles' contribution to Singapore, and proposed that it should be used to complete the Institution. George Drumgoole Coleman was then hired to finish and extend the original building by Jackson.
Early years
On 1 August 1834, Reverend F. J. Darrah opened the Singapore Free School with 46 boys, which quickly grew to nearly 80. When the building for the Institution was completed in 1837, the school applied to occupy the building, a proposal the trustees of the Institution accepted. The Singapore Free School moved into the building in December 1837, and became the Institution Free School. It was, however, established as an elementary school rather than the college that Raffles had initially intended. Originally the school offered classes in Malay, Chinese and English, but the Malay classes soon closed in 1842 due to low enrolment, and it would eventually become an English-medium school. In May 1839, the first wing extension was completed, and the second at the end of 1841. In 1856, the Singapore Institution Free School was renamed Singapore Institution.In the 1860s, the school gradually turned into a high school. In 1868, the school was renamed Raffles Institution in honour of its founder. The most significant headmasters of the period were J. B. Bayley and R. W. Hullett, who oversaw the transition and ran the school for a cumulative period of 50 years.
The school is Singapore's first institution to enrol girls, with 11 pupils accepted in 1844. In 1879, the girls' wing of the school was established as a separate but affiliated school, Raffles Girls' School.
Relocation
In March 1972, the school moved to Grange Road. The old building was demolished and replaced by Raffles City Shopping Centre. The Bras Basah campus's library building is featured on the S$2 paper and polymer note in Singapore currency.In 1984, RI became one of two schools selected by the Ministry of Education to pilot the Gifted Education Programme to cater to intellectually gifted students.
In 1990, the school moved again, this time from Grange Road to a new campus at Bishan, then a recently created new town.
Raffles Junior College
In 1982, Raffles Junior College was established at Paterson Road to take over the school's burgeoning pre-university enrolment. It subsequently moved to Mount Sinai Road in 1984.In 2004, the six-year Raffles Programme was offered to Secondary 1 to 3 students. It allows RI students to skip the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Ordinary Level examinations, which students would previously sit for at the end of Year 4. Instead, they move on directly to RJC for Years 5 and 6 and sit for the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Advanced Level examinations at the end of Year 6. This frees up time which students would otherwise spend on preparing for the O Level examinations, allowing them to spend more time engaging in enrichment and co-curricular or passion-driven activities. The curriculum serves to "seek to nurture the best and brightest into men and women of scholarship who will be leaders of distinction, committed to excellence and service in the interest of the community and nation." This subsequently led to the merging of RI's GEP and Special/Express streams to form a single Raffles Programme stream, and the establishment of its in-house academic talent development programme, Raffles Academy, catering to exceptionally gifted students via subject-specific pullout classes from Year 3 onwards, in 2007.
In 2005, RJC, along with Hwa Chong Junior College, became one of the first junior colleges in Singapore to attain independent status. RJC moved to its new Bishan campus adjacent to RI at the start of the 2005 school year, after attaining independent status and becoming the first pre-university institution in Singapore to be awarded the School Excellence Award.
In 2009, RI and RJC re-integrated to form a single institution under the name "Raffles Institution" to facilitate the running of the Raffles Programme and better align processes and curriculum.
School identity and culture
RI is a member of various academic partnerships and alliances, such as the G30 Schools and Winchester Network. It also co-founded the Global Alliance of Leading-Edge Schools.Motto
The school motto - Auspicium Melioris Aevi - comes from the coat of arms of its founder, Stamford Raffles. The official translation by the school is "Hope of a Better Age".Houses
The five houses, three of them named after former headmasters, are Bayley, Buckley, Hullett, Moor and Morrison, represented by the colours yellow, green, black, red and blue respectively.C. B. Buckley was the Secretary to the Board of Trustees of Raffles Institution.
J. B. Bayley was a Headmaster who "raised Raffles Institution to a large and flourishing establishment", as recorded by the board of trustees.
J. H. Moor was the first Headmaster of the school, whose 4th great-grandson is Justin Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada.
Reverend Robert Morrison was the co-founder of Raffles Institution.
R.W. Hullett was Raffles Institution's longest-serving Headmaster.
Year 1 students are sorted into houses by class. In the early years of RI's history, there were ten houses, including a sixth Philips house, later disbanded. House allocations used to be student-based, instead of class-based. Each House is led by a House Captain, a Year 4 student, who carries out his role along with the respective House Committee. The Houses participate in inter-house tournaments and activities, notably including the annual Inter-House Sports Carnival, Dramafeste and the Inter-House Debate tournament, with points earned from each activity contributing to the House Championship which is awarded at the end of the school year.
Students of the college section were divided into five Houses, the name of which is an amalgamation of its counterparts in RI and RGS: