Licensing of driving instructors and driving schools
Singapore requires licences for driving instructors and driving schools. The rules set instructor eligibility, learner-facing licence display, approved instruction vehicles, and a limited training-school exemption.
Primary source: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/RTA1961-R16
Instructor and school licences
The Road Traffic Act has separate licences for a driving instructor and for carrying on the business of a driving school. A licensed driving school generally must employ or engage instructors who hold an instructor’s licence; the limited exception for named schools is described below (SSO, Road Traffic Act 1961, Part 3; Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) Rules, rr. 2 and 23).
For an individual instructor’s licence, the current Rules require at least 3 years holding a driving licence for the same vehicle class and completion of the instructor course required by the Deputy Commissioner of Police. An instructor’s licence cannot be granted to a person aged 75 or older. The application may require evidence of age and driving experience, a medical certificate of physical and mental fitness, and two recent passport-sized photographs (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) Rules, rr. 3–4).
A driving-school licence application requires the business registration certificate and, for a company, its incorporation or registration certificate. The applicant must provide instructor and vehicle particulars and information about people enrolled for instruction, including their provisional driving licence details; the licensing authority must be satisfied that the applicant is a fit and proper person (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) Rules, rr. 5–6).
Checks during lessons
An individually licensed instructor must wear the licence over the left chest while acting as an instructor, with its particulars visible, and produce it for inspection on demand. The licence may not be lent to another person. A vehicle used for instruction must be registered for that purpose under the vehicle-registration Rules (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) Rules, rr. 20–21 and 25).
The instructor must take reasonable precautions to ensure the lesson vehicle is driven safely and does not cause undue obstruction. The Deputy Commissioner of Police may require an instruction vehicle to be produced for inspection (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) Rules, rr. 22 and 26).
The licensing authority considers instruction fees fair and reasonable. It may suspend or revoke a licence if the licensee misrepresented or withheld a fact in the application, provided instruction unsatisfactorily, or charged unreasonable fees. An instruction or driving-test vehicle must be insured against liability arising from its use by an instructor, any person driving it, or another person in the vehicle during a driving test (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) Rules, rr. 19, 24 and 27).
Limited school exemption
The Exemption Order names Singapore Safety Driving Centre Ltd, Bukit Batok Driving Centre Pte Ltd, ComfortDelGro Driving Centre Pte Ltd, SBS Transit Ltd and SMRT Buses Ltd. It exempts these driving-school licensees from the general requirement in rule 23 that every instructor they employ hold an individual instructor’s licence, subject to the Order’s conditions (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) (Exemption) Order 2011, para. 2 and Schedule).
Among those conditions, the school must hold a valid driving-school licence and have a Traffic Police-approved instructor-training programme. An instructor employed under this exemption who does not hold an individual instructor’s licence must complete the school’s programme and pass Traffic Police’s instructor-certification test before conducting a lesson or training (Road Traffic (Driving Instructors and Driving Schools) (Exemption) Order 2011, Schedule).
Coverage debt
- The current Rules do not describe a public-facing application portal or the complete instructor-training syllabus. This article does not infer either from the licensing requirements.
- The instructor course required for an individual licence and the exempt schools’ approved training programme are not published in detail in the cited Rules and Order.