Home > Media Centre > Press Releases Printer-friendly page

January Single Intake for Junior Colleges and Centralised Institute in 2009

1. Starting from 2009, Junior Colleges (JC) and the Centralised Institute (CI) will start the school term for Year 1 students with a single intake in end January.
2. This change from the current two intakes is made possible because the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board will be taking greater control of the GCE ‘O’ level examinations from 2006. In addition, MOE will streamline the processes for the ‘O’ level examinations and Joint Admissions Exercise^[1]. The following changes will take place from 2009:
   1. The ‘O’ level results^[2] will be released in early January. Students sitting for their ‘O’ level examinations in 2008 will be the first batch to benefit from the earlier release of ‘O’ level results; and
   2. The posting results from the Joint Admissions Exercise^[3]will be released in end January.

3. A single intake system addresses the current problem of 'churning' of students(see background). In addition, a single intake in January will allow synchronisation of the JC/CI academic calendar and holiday periods with that of primary and secondary schools.
4. The revised school calendars for JCs and CI, based on a single intake in end January of 2009, are in Annex A and Annex B respectively.
5. In terms of school holidays, the JCs and CI will share six common weeks of holidays with the polytechnics, as is currently the case. Depending on the JC/CI level, JCs and CI will share between 10 to 12 common weeks with the primary and secondary schools (see Annex C). The common holiday periods will enable families with children studying in different educational levels to spend time together.

Background

6. Currently, there are two JC/CI intakes: one in January that is based on school preliminary examination results, and another in March based on ‘O’ level results. The two-intake situation gives rise to “churning” of students in JCs and CI in March. This results in re-teaching of subjects and re-orientation of students, which also affects the sense of affiliation among students.
7. The revision of JC and CI calendars was one of the recommendations of the JC/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee in October 2002, chaired by then Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry & Education, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam. In March 2005, Mr Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education, announced that MOE would be reviewing the academic calendar of JCs and CI, in order to implement a system with a single intake of students in mid/ end January each year.