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Direct Polytechnic Admissions Exercise

The first Direct Polytechnic Admission (DPA) Exercise will commence on 9 July 2008, for admission into the polytechnics in 2009. The DPA Exercise will give the polytechnics greater flexibility to select students on criteria other than examination results, thus allowing a wider range of talents to be recognised. The DPA Exercise also allows students who are interested in, and who have the aptitude for applied learning, to confirm places in polytechnic courses prior to taking their GCE O-Level examinations. Students accepted to polytechnics through the DPA can also benefit from special preparatory programmes in the polytechnics, before the start of the formal polytechnic calendar in April 2009.

The five polytechnics–Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic–will each admit up to 2.5% of their Academic Year 2009 intake through DPA on average. There will also be a course-specific cap of 30% for each polytechnic course under the DPA. This is to ensure that students admitted through the GCE O-Level route will continue to have access to popular polytechnic courses.

Students admitted via the DPA will have to meet the admission criteria for their respective polytechnic courses, based on their GCE O-Level results. This is to ensure that students admitted through DPA will be able to cope with the rigours of a polytechnic education. These students will not take part in the Joint Admissions Exercise (JAE) or Joint Polytechnic Special Admissions Exercise (JPSAE). More details on the eligibility criteria can be found in the “Selection and Eligibility Criteria” section.

Students who are interested in a JC pathway and wish to gain direct admission to a JC can participate in the DSA-JC Exercise1, which is conducted during the same period as the DPA Exercise.

Please visit the DSA-JC Exercise website for more information on the DSA-JC Exercise.

Footnotes:

  1. While a student can participate in both DSA-JC and DPA exercises, he cannot accept both JC and polytechnic places. This is to prevent more places than necessary from being taken up in the JCs or polytechnics. Students who accept both DPA and DSA-JC offers will be disqualified from both exercises. ↩