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17 MAY 2007

DIRECT SCHOOL ADMISSION EXERCISE 2007 FOR JC1 AND EQUIVALENT LEVEL
 

1.       The Direct School Admission Exercise 2007 for admission to JC1 and its equivalent level (DSA-JC) will be held from Monday, 25 June 2007, to Friday, 5 October 2007.

2.       The DSA 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 student achievements and talents in seeking admission at the pre-university level. 

3.       Similar to last year’s exercise, Government and Government-aided junior colleges (JCs)[1] will be admitting up to 10% of their 2008 JC1 intake using school-based criteria under the DSA-JC Exercise.  The 3 independent institutions offering pre-university programmes[2] will have the flexibility to admit up to 20% of their intake using school-based criteria.

Student Selection

4.       Each institution will admit students according to its own merit-based admission criteria (academic and/or non-academic criteria), based on the students’ personal qualities and the areas of focus (such as leadership, science, music, sports) that the school would like to emphasise. Information on the schools participating in DSA-JC Exercise, their selection criteria and their application and selection processes can be found on their respective websites.  Annex A lists the participating institutions’ website URLs.

5.       The DSA-JC Exercise will be conducted prior to the annual Provisional Admission Exercise (PAE).  Students admitted via the DSA-JC Exercise will have to meet the criteria for admission to a JC.  They will not take part in the Provisional Admission Exercise (PAE) and Joint Admissions Exercise (JAE).  The eligibility criteria for admission to JC are attached in Annex B.

DSA-JC Exercise

6.   The exercise will be conducted in 2 phases as follows:

For Further Information
 
8.       Students who are interested in participating in the DSA-JC Exercise should approach any of the participating institutions or visit their websites for more details regarding the selection exercises.
 
9.       Students/Parents can also call MOE Customer Service Centre at 6872 2220 for further clarifications or refer to the MOE website at http://www.moe.gov.sg/esp/schadm/dsa_jc/ for more information regarding the DSA-JC Exercise.

Direct Polytechnic Admission Exercise

10.     Students who are interested in polytechnic studies and wish to gain direct admission to polytechnics can participate in the Direct Polytechnic Admission Exercise (DPA), which will commence on 11 July 2007, for admission to polytechnics in 2008.

11.     Students can participate in both DSA-JC and DPA Exercises but can only accept one offer at any one time - either a JC or a polytechnic offer.  If a student were to accept both a JC and a polytechnic offer concurrently, he/she will be disqualified from both the DSA-JC and DPA Exercises.  Students can refer to MOE website at http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/post-sec/dpa/ for more information regarding the DPA Exercise.

Background

12.     The Ministry of Education (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.

13.     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 to mainstream secondary schools that are able to develop strong niche programmes;

d.   giving discretion on admissions to all JCs.