aster wrote:anthonyh wrote:It's quite an important issue for me because if I have to put my children into
International Schools, then it sets a much, much higher threshold for me to agree to relocate to Singapore. If I can get my kids into a local school, then it makes it much easier to do it. The package that I've been offered does not have any school fees assistance.
Merichan - how do you know which primary schools generally have spots available for Phase 3? Does the MOE publish this?
And I'm curious, why do you say that in the past few years, most schools have been oversubscribed? Was there a surge in baby births a few years ago?
First of all you only stand a chance of entering a child into a public school if they enter at P1 level. If your kids are older then you need to look at an int'l school, period, the end, glad you liked the show, good night and God bless.
@Aster I beg to differ: I got my daughter admitted directly in P3 and there are dozen of children that join each year the singaporean schools, quite often even midyear. Some even get space in what could be considered good schools.
The only restriction is that MOE doesn't want new students joining in P6 not to disturb the PSLE year for all students.
You might run in problems if child is not fluent in english, if child as mild to severe special needs, but as long as child as a DP if you seek admission in local schools it might take a few weeks to a few months to get a positive answer but you will get it in the end.
@Anthonyh kiasu parents has the history of available places. For the one available this year it will soon be online on the MOE website itself.
aster wrote:
Singapore has run out of school places. The country probably has the highest-paid minister of education in the world, who only needs to deal with what is essentially a city-state and not an huge nation, but still there is a huge problem here now with school places. The reason is certainly not child births, that is said to actually be the lowest in the world. So the only other reason left is the high level of demand from immigrants. Well, that and the fact that a lot of schools seem to have been closed over the years.
From next year there will be no Phase 3 balloting and any such exercise, MoE will for the first time handle everything centrally and allocate places as it sees fit. Scary thought this.
One more reason I'll add to the system saturation: the expected number of kids in one class keeps shrinking. In the lower primary levels the norms should now be around 30 children in class maximum.
The handling of phase 3 by MOE might be actually a really good thing in my opinion even if it freaks parents out. Over the last few years there has been case of children that couldn't find a spot before middle of January because they were rejected in the balloting, and MOE had to handle those case centrally anyway.