Parliamentary Replies
Primary One Registration
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Er Lee Bee Wah, Member of Parliament for Ang Mo Kio GRC
Question
To ask the Minister for Education in the recent Primary One Registration Exercise (a) how many schools have to conduct balloting in Phase 2C of the admission exercise; (b) how many children gained admission to the school of their choice through (i) the parent’s volunteer scheme; and (ii) their parent’s donation to the school; and (c) whether the Ministry has any plan to finetune the current system such as giving priority to those who live within 500 metres of the school.
Response
MOE provides sufficient school places in Primary One to take in all applications. There are in fact surplus places at the end of every P1 Registration Exercise. Nevertheless, for popular schools which will always have more applications than places available, balloting is a fair, if not perfect means, to determine admissions. The balloting situation this year is comparable to last year when MOE began to transit primary schools to single session. 80 schools or 45% of primary schools conducted balloting in Phase 2C this year.
The member asked for the number of admissions in priority schemes before Phase 2C. The Primary One registration framework has clear criteria which set out the priority for admission. Donations by parents are not a consideration. Those admitted under the parent volunteer scheme in Phase 2B took up only 3% of all places available, or 1337 places, spread across 77 schools.
Overall, in this year’s exercise, over 98% of the children secured a P1 place in their first-choice school or a school within 2 km of their home. MOE therefore has no plans to alter the current registration framework which has worked well to meet the diverse needs of the schools and the applicants.