Enough Primary 1 Places For All Eligible, Even Expat Children

Source : Weekend TODAY, September 1, 2007

Letter from TAN TOW KOON
Deputy Director, School
Placement and Scholarships
Ministry of Education (MOE)

WE REFERto the report, “Expats want the right school, too” (Aug 31).

The report quoted parent Andy Cheng as saying that he had queued at Tanjong Katong Primary School because he saw — on the MOE’s Primary 1 Registration website — that there were 10 vacancies available at the school.

As part of the usual P1 Registration process every year, after Phase 2C (Supplementary), MOE works on posting Singapore Citizens and Singapore Permanent Residents (SC/SPR) who were not successfully registered in any school at the end of Phase 2C (Supplementary).

This is to ensure that all eligible SC/SPR children are allocated a place in our schools. The process involves consultation with the parents and advising them on available vacancies.

As these remaining postings for SC/SPR children have priority over Phase 3, the vacancy statistics for Phase 3 can only be provided after this process of registering SC/SPR children is completed.

For this year’s P1 Registration exercise, this was completed on Aug 28. The website was immediately updated with the vacancy statistics for Phase 3 on the morning of Aug 29 — before Phase 3 began on Aug 30.

We nevertheless apologise to affected parents in Phase 3 for any inconvenience caused and will make it explicitly clear in our website for future P1 registration exercises that information pertaining to Phase 2C (Supplementary) does not apply to Phase 3.

MOE will continue to provide information on vacancies for Phase 3 at the start of that phase, or earlier wherever possible.

There were about 6,000 vacancies in our schools for Phase 3. While parents may not get a place at the school of their choice, there are enough places in our schools for all eligible P1 children to have a quality education.