Mdm Chong Chew Luan Penny is a teacher for visually impaired (VI) students, and she strongly believes in inclusive education. She has dedicated 15 years of excellent service to nurturing VI students in Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School (AISS), which has 7 students that are VI and need additional support. Mdm Chong has been a dedicated resource teacher for all subjects that her VI students undertake. This duty also includes converting academic materials into Braille, developing additional materials, or embarking on adhoc projects like learning an online tool for music composition to assist a student how to use it for his music examination at O-level. She also leads the other VI resource teachers in providing the best coaching programme for the VI students in the school.

Mdm Chong played an instrumental role in the holistic development of VI students through the implementation of various initiatives. For instance, she initiated a collaboration between the school and National University of Singapore’s College of Alice and Peter Tan since 2018 to reinforce the school’s 2-level approach to the VI programme, whereby VI students learn daily living skills to gain greater independence and our sighted students learn to help and care for the VI.

While working on her students’ academic progress, Mdm Chong is also conscious about promoting inclusion in and outside of school. Therefore, she creates opportunities for VI students to interact with sighted students and getting them involved in activities externally, where they work with mentors to pursue their interests or showcase their talents. For instance, since 2014, Penny has liaised with Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) and coordinated with the Assistant Year-Head and Form Teachers to organise the annual Dialogue-in-the-Dark Learning Journey in NP which aims to provide first-hand experience of the challenges which VI persons face in their daily lives.

Mdm Chong is regarded as an expert on educational matters for VI students due to her rich experience and the depth of her work. As a result, Mdm Chong often shares her knowledge with officers in Ministry of Education, HQ, other education institutions and Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board on VI-related issues. These professional conversations have helped the fraternity growth its knowledge in teaching VI students. Furthermore, her work with the VI students at AISS has broadly shaped the school’s way of managing and working with special education needs (SEN) students and in supporting access arrangement for students with various impairments for learning and examinations.