Forum Letter Replies
Safeguarding the interests of home-schooled children
We refer to recent letters in the Straits Times’ Forum on the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) approach towards home-schoolers.
The Compulsory Education (CE) Act, legislated and implemented in 2003, ensures that Singaporean children are provided a sound education in our national schools.
Nevertheless, exemptions for home-schooling were allowed but with safeguards in place to protect the interest of the student. A PSLE benchmark was set at achievable standards taking their profiles into account and pegged at the bottom 33rd percentile PSLE aggregate score of all merged stream pupils who took the PSLE in that same year. This corresponded to a PSLE score of 191.
This benchmark is necessary to ensure acceptable standards of home-schooling, which can be highly variable as it is often dependent on a single provider. Parents who chose for their children to opt-out of national schools were informed upfront and had agreed to the PSLE benchmarks set for home-schooled children.
This year, 19 of the 26 home-schoolers who sat for the PSLE met the benchmark. 7 home-schoolers did not and had scores ranging from the bottom 1 percent to the 29th percentile. The request by parents to lower the benchmark does not serve the interest of these students. Instead, parents should consider enrolling them in our national schools to avail themselves of the full opportunities and resources that our schools provide. They should preferably do this as early as possible.
MOE will help facilitate admission to Secondary One for home-schoolers who have met the benchmarks. Those who wish to attend a national primary school to repeat the PSLE in 2009 can also seek MOE’s help for admission to Primary Six or lower.
Head, Compulsory Education
Ministry of Education