page_title: Hwa Chong Junior College
section_title: Founding
hierarchical_section_title: Hwa Chong Junior College / History / Founding
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of Hwa Chong JC in 1978. This building was tore down between in 1986-1988.
context_page_description: The former Hwa Chong Junior College was a junior college in Singapore offering pre-university education. The college was founded in 1974 and was merged into The Chinese High School on 1 January 2005 to form the integrated Hwa Chong Institution.
context_section_description: Hwa Chong Junior College is the second junior college, and the first government-aided junior college to be established in Singapore, after National Junior College. In 1970, the then Minister for Education Ong Pang Boon approached a group of Chinese community leaders from the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) to discuss establishing ten junior colleges to replace the pre-university classes in the senior high sections of The Chinese High School and other high schools in Singapore. Mr Tan Keong Choon, a prominent businessman and the managing director of the board of The Chinese High School was appointed to oversee the project, estimated to cost S$2.2 million of which half of the total funds is to be funded by SCCCI.
  After meetings and discussions, the Chinese community leaders declared to the government that due to financial constraints, they were able to raise sufficient funds for constructing only two of the originally intended ten junior colleges. Subsequently, the management board of The Chinese High School creased the school's pre-university classes in preparation for the building of a new junior college. In 1974, Hwa Chong Junior College was inaugurated at the Bukit Timah Road campus of The Chinese High School, and was run by the same management board as the high school. The junior college's name was an abbreviation of the high school's Chinese name, to mark the relationship between the two schools.
  Hwa Chong Junior College commenced lessons on 2 January 1974 in National Junior College, and the former Bukit Timah campus of the Singapore Management University. On 14 June 1974, the college commenced its operation at its permanent site at 661 Bukit Timah Road, located adjacent to the campus of The Chinese High School. With a cohort size of 1500 students and 88 staff, Hwa Chong Junior College was the largest junior college in Singapore in terms of enrollment. The initial facilities of the campus include a fully air-conditioned library, a multi-purpose hall, two lecture theatres of seating capacity of 300 and 500 respectively, ten laboratories and twenty-four tutorial rooms.
  In the initial years, Hwa Chong Junior College offered pre-university courses in two language mediums, namely Chinese Language and English Language, before the restructuring of the education system in 1982. The uniform was designed by the pioneer batch of students, with the college crest, motto and anthem selected by the pioneering teachers. In 1981, Hwa Chong Junior College became the first junior college in Singapore to offer the Humanities Programme.
caption: A view of the old building of Hwa Chong Junior College, circa 1978.
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