All school facilities to run on central MOE system by 2031

It will manage operations such as lighting and water use, in move to boost efficiency

- Gabrielle Chan

By 2031, all mainstream and special education schools in Singapore will move from managing their own facilities to a central system overseen by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

Schools will be connected to MOE's new Smart Facilities Management (Smart FM) system, which will manage day-to-day operations such as lighting, air-conditioning, and energy and water use.

Rather than replacing existing infrastructure such as fire alarms, water tanks and pumps, or air-conditioning in server rooms, the system will integrate with them to provide a unified platform for monitoring and management across all schools.

The Smart FM system will also connect to the Government Technology Agency's (GovTech) cloud service for real-time monitoring and control.

According to a tender seen by The Straits Times, the new platform will run in a centralised mode for 354 schools.

This means it can be hosted centrally, serving multiple schools at once through secure connections, with a centralised administrator overseeing user access and roles across the entire network.

MOE awarded the $78.6 million contract for the system's provisioning and maintenance to tech firm NCS Singapore in March.