Students interested in applying for direct admission to secondary schools and junior colleges (JC) may do so starting Monday (May 8), the Education Ministry has announced.

Meanwhile, the Early Admissions Exercise to polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), will start from June.

This year, 128 schools will be taking part in the Direct School Admission-Secondary Exercise, while 18 junior colleges are involved in the Direct School Admission-JC Exercise.

These admission exercises allow students to be selected for secondary schools or junior colleges even before their Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) or GCE O-Level examination results are released.

However, students will still be required to take their PSLE or GCE O-Level examinations respectively and cannot transfer to another school once the results are out.

In March, Education Minister (Schools) Ng Chee Meng announced that the Direct Schools Admission Exercise (DSA) will be tweaked from next year to prevent parents and students from gaming the system and to bring the 13-year-old Direct Schools Admission Exercise (DSA) back to its original objective of recognising and admitting students based on talents in areas such as sports and arts.

Mr Ng said that all secondary schools will only be allowed to admit up to 20 per cent of their Secondary One intake for the four-year O-Level track under the DSA from 2018.

Schools will also have to do away with general academic ability tests, which “inadvertently put undue focus on general academic abilities”, as part of their selection process, Mr Ng had said.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by TodayOnline

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