Student Pass for my Daughter

[nimo_1976]

Hi Everyone.
I am a new member. However, I have visited the site a few times in the past and got a lot of good information.

I am facing an unique situation and wanted to see if others had similar experiences before. My daughter (2 years 10 months) is supposed to start her N1 lessons in a kindergarten from 16th January. The school applied for her student pass in November and we provided our details on 27th November to ICA. The status in ICA website is showing 'Receiving Attention' for the last 48 days. We have contacted ICA 3 times by e-mail and also met the officer last week in her office. Both my wife and I are PRs, however, the daughter is on LTVP.

Does anyone in this forum faced similar experiences before? If yes, what was the ultimate outcome? Thanks in advance for your insights/guidance.

[sundaymorningstaple]

One of the keys I've seen cannot be determined by your post. That is your ethnicity. Depending on where you are from, I've seen them withhold PR from a child who does not have PR but only an LTVP get put into a bind because of schooling. This has caused a few PR families to leave the country and ultimately giving up their PR, which, to me is what the ICA is attempting to do to lessen pressure on some of the ethnic percentages that have been pushed up much to the governments dismay.

[nimo_1976]

Thanks for your reply. I am from South Asia (not India or Pakistan) and work in a US Multinational Company as a Senior Manager.

I am not sure about the ethnicity thing as we applied for 2 student passes in November. My son's pass was approved within 10 days (he is going to Overseas Family School in Grade 1). However, my daughter's one is pending for 7 weeks now. If ethnicity was an issue then my son's student pass shouldn't have been approved so quickly--and this is exactly why I am perplexed.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Interesting. Have you trying calling them to ask if they need any additional information? It does sound strange

[bcheng74]

Are you aiming to put your girl in local kindergarten? If yes then it may be a reason.


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[nimo_1976]

I went to ICA and met with the officer a week back. Also there was at least 6-7 e-mails exchanged. They seem to be sympathetic to the case over mail and face-to-face. However, nothing has been done so far. The school is also following-up and didn't get any definitive reply from ICA.

The kindergarten is a local one associated with a church. My son also attended the same pre-school. According to the admission office, 4-5 students in the total class size of 18 are foreigners (i.e. LTVP holder) and none of them got approval yet. If this is the reason (i.e. local kindergarten), then there should be explicit rules. It will also commercially impact the kindergarten as they are stuck with so many new students.

[PNGMK]

I have been told by a board member of NTU that the gahmen is moving away from Singapore being an education hub for foreign kids in their local primary / secondary students for "political reasons". With Kindy now becoming compulsory it's logical that they have extended this view down into the Kindys as well. Your only choice maybe a private "international" kindy.

[bcheng74]

The commercial impact of the pre-school will not be an ICA's concern at all.


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[nimo_1976]

Thanks for the feedback guys. The application was approved last night. It took 54 days for ICA to approve the pass (they just issued an LOC).

I agree that the process is getting lengthy and difficult with every passing day, specifically in education. The reason may very well be 'political'. There is a protectionist/populist wave in most of the developed world and may be the government is trying to preempt by taking these measures to placate the local population.

[calmhappy]

My impression the student pass application for kindergarten/childcare is usually quite long. I remember read in the official website that process time about 2 month.

Is your girl's LTVP expiry date still far away? the LOC expiry date follow that. I am wondering will the LOC get auto extension during the renewal of LTVP or need to apply again.