Home > Media Centre > Press Releases Printer-friendly page

10 May 2007

56 SECONDARY SCHOOLS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DIRECT SCHOOL ADMISSION EXERCISE

1.         This year, 56 schools, 9 more than last year, will be participating in the Direct School Admission Exercise for admission to Secondary One in 2008.  The Direct School Admission Exercise (Secondary) (DSA-Sec) aims to promote holistic education by giving participating schools greater flexibility in selecting students while holding to the key principles of transparency and meritocracy.  For students, the DSA provides them the opportunity to demonstrate a more diverse range of achievements and talents in seeking admission to secondary schools.

2.         The list of the 56 schools participating in DSA-Sec this year is at Annex A .

New DSA Secondary Schools

Specialised Independent School

3.         This year’s DSA-Sec Exercise will be extended to the new School of the Arts (SOTA), a specialised Independent School for talented youths in the visual and performing arts.  SOTA will start in January 2008.  SOTA will offer a 6-year holistic curriculum that meaningfully connects the arts and the academic programme at pre-tertiary level, to provide a dedicated development path for students to realise their artistic and academic potential.  SOTA students will sit for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma as their graduating qualification at Year 6.

Niche Programme Schools

4.         Based on their track record of achievements and their development plans for their niche areas, the following eight schools have been approved by the Ministry of Education (MOE) this year to offer discretionary places under the DSA-Sec Exercise for schools with approved niche programmes:

5.         Presbyterian High, which participated in last year’s DSA-Sec Exercise with uniformed groups as their niche area, will offer volleyball (girls’ team) as a new niche area this year, in addition to uniformed groups.

6.         The full list of the 20 niche programme schools is at Annex B.  MOE will continue to invite applications from schools interested to establish niche programmes in subsequent years.

Student Selection for DSA Places

7.         Each school has its own merit-based criteria for selection (academic and/or non-academic criteria), based on the students’ personal qualities and areas of focus (such as science, music, sports) that the school would like to emphasise.  Information on the schools participating in the DSA-Sec Exercise, their selection criteria and their application and selection processes can be found on their respective websites. 

DSA-Sec Exercise

8.         The exercise will be conducted in 3 stages as follows:

9.         Please refer to Annex C and Annex C1 for details of each stage.

10.       Students who take up confirmed offers or waiting list offers by schools during the DSA-Sec Exercise are still required to take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).  Those who take up confirmed offers are guaranteed a place in the school that has extended them an offer, provided that their PSLE results meet the minimum requirement for an academic course [Express/ Normal (Academic)/ Normal (Technical)] which is offered by the school.

11.       Students who have been admitted through the DSA-Sec Exercise will not be able to participate in the centralised Secondary One Posting Exercise.

For Further Information

12.       Students who are interested in participating in the DSA-Sec Exercise should approach any of the participating Secondary Schools or visit their websites for more details regarding the selection exercises.

13. Students/parents can also call MOE Customer Service Centre at 6872 2220 for further clarifications or refer to the MOE website at www.moe.gov.sg/esp/schadm/dsa_sec/ for more information regarding the DSA-Sec Exercise.

Background

14.       MOE has been giving schools, polytechnics and universities greater flexibility in their admission of students to allow a more diverse range of student achievements and talents to be recognised.

15. Since 2004, MOE has introduced a phased plan to provide greater flexibility in the secondary and junior college (JC) school admission system.  The plan includes:

a.   allowing schools with the Integrated Programme (IP), NUS High School and School of the Arts full discretion in admissions;

b.   enhancing the autonomy of Autonomous Schools (AS) and Independent Schools (IS) by:

i.    increasing their level of discretionary places to 10% and 20% respectively, and

ii.   allowing them to adopt their own merit-based admission criteria for these places;

c.   extending discretion on admissions, of up to 5% of intake, to mainstream secondary schools that are able to develop strong niche programmes; and

d. giving discretion on admissions to all JCs.