Any Foreign kid got to Local School (2022)

[BeeKayEss]

Ok, so we just got the result and we have been offered a local school which is almost 15 kms away. I have been checking the status of our neighbourhood school and they had vacancies, but still we couldnt get through there. My kid was in a private pre-school with majority of local kids and we could see he was thriving and hence decided that we wanted local school for his primary education also.

thanks for all the inputs

[malcontent]

Phase 2 and Phase 3 are two completely different things. For Phase 2, it only matters if you are a SC or PR, and then it is up to (now citizenship,) distance and then random balloting (of course where a child did N1-K2 is irrelevant). Phase 3 is hardly that. While no one knows the exact formula they are using, it wouldn't be difficult to guess some of the factors they are considering.

I’d guess the closest school that still has seats, simple as that. Seemed to be the case for my son and his cousin who lives in the same condo as us and applied during the same round of P1, both of them were offered spots at Cantonment Primary, not exactly close to where we live in the Holland area, but not horrible either.

Probably a bit more complicated than that. Maybe a more critical question is "Who gets the seats?" Can't say for sure but I think it is unlikely they just group everyone into different distance categories and then conduct a random ballot. Certainly, there are people in close proximity to a school that don't get a seat, and there are people that are allocated to a school an hour plus away (although this may have been the school that was closet to them with vacancy, or it was the closest school after all of the vacancies at nearer schools were given to other people).

Anyways, there are definitely many factors that play no part in Phase 2 applications. Not sure I would conclude that itself means they are irrelevant to Phase 3 applications.

I’d guess for the “who gets seats” among non-SC/PR students, first priority probably goes to those with a SC/PR parent, after that, I’d guess priority is probably based how long they have been residing in SG, the longer you’ve been the greater your odds of getting a seat. However, I agree with you - it’s probably a lot more complicated than that — I could see a Malaysian passport who just arrived getting priority over an ang moh passport, even if they’ve been here for years.

[boredahjossii]

My kid was able to get a local school spot during Phase 3 registration. It is just very near, around 100 meters from our rented HDB.
The key is to study the previous year's balloting results. You need to identify which areas and which schools has more remaining slots to offer during Phase 3 registration.
Then I became strategic and move to this area two years before my kid will turn P1.
K1 & K2 were in PCF Sparkletots to show that we are willing to integrate on the local school system.
Don't know if that helps, but three of my friends did it and we are all successful.
There is no really guideline on how to achieve this but we just tried the most possible logical way we can get it. And perhaps you can also include prayers and luck.

This may increase the chance of your kids getting into local school, but there is no guarantee to that. In my case, my son also have his K1 & K2 in PCF Sparkletots, and the school that is located the closest to our place historically had a lot of available quotas in previous years. But suddenly for this year all the quotas are taken up during phase 2C.

Even after that, there are 2 more schools within our neighborhood that still has slots, but we are only offered a place in a school that is located 12km away

[malcontent]

MOE just released the latest school fees through 2026. For non-ASEAN passport holders, fees will rise to over $1k per month for primary and over $2k per month for secondary.

At least cars and houses are affordable to foreigners

[BeeKayEss]

MOE just released the latest school fees through 2026. For non-ASEAN passport holders, fees will rise to over $1k per month for primary and over $2k per month for secondary.

At least cars and houses are affordable to foreigners

+ additional charges for private vehicle hire. I wonder why schools are offered like this for foreigners? Seems like these schools have too many vacancies compared to neighbour hood schools and I am aware of couple more kids from my locality placed in the same school as my kid now.

[malcontent]

MOE just released the latest school fees through 2026. For non-ASEAN passport holders, fees will rise to over $1k per month for primary and over $2k per month for secondary.

At least cars and houses are affordable to foreigners

+ additional charges for private vehicle hire. I wonder why schools are offered like this for foreigners? Seems like these schools have too many vacancies compared to neighbour hood schools and I am aware of couple more kids from my locality placed in the same school as my kid now.

At least one reason the cost has been ratcheted up is to spur more citizenship applications. Part of the “sharper differentiation” policies, and partly intended to make Singaporeans feel like they benefit from being a citizen… but most I’ve talked to didn’t even know this change occurred, because the fees haven’t changed for them.

Obviously, this is bound to have some unintended consequences, here are a few off the top of my head:

- newly arrived families/would-be targets for future citizenry, can’t stomach the costs and bounce or just refuse move here

- the number of foreign students attending local schools has dropped, breeding a more insular future generation, less at ease in the global workplace

One potential plus side (maybe), they have been able to consolidate schools, decreasing the number of teachers needed, allowing (in theory) more quality with less quantity.

[NYY1]

At least one reason the cost has been ratcheted up is to spur more citizenship applications. Part of the “sharper differentiation” policies, and partly intended to make Singaporeans feel like they benefit from being a citizen… but most I’ve talked to didn’t even know this change occurred, because the fees haven’t changed for them.

Obviously, this is bound to have some unintended consequences, here are a few off the top of my head:

- newly arrived families/would-be targets for future citizenry, can’t stomach the costs and bounce or just refuse move here

- the number of foreign students attending local schools has dropped, breeding a more insular future generation, less at ease in the global workplace

One potential plus side (maybe), they have been able to consolidate schools, decreasing the number of teachers needed, allowing (in theory) more quality with less quantity.

Maybe have some deeper thoughts about all of the circumstances involved when a school is closed or merged or what else can happen besides closing/merging schools. Perhaps you will find the following surprising:

Number of Primary Schools:
2012 = 175 (registration in 2011, the last year before certain rules were changed)
2023 = 182

Do you have any statistics or statements that show the number of foreign students in the local schools has declined? Just because foreign students are no longer guaranteed a spot in the P1 registration system doesn't necessarily mean there are fewer foreign students in the schools (number or as a % of the cohort). There are other avenues to admit foreign students and the success rate when applying for a space does not itself tell you how many were admitted.

Further, I wonder if some people could be mixing up the fact that certain people cannot get their child admitted to the school(s) they want vs. whether the total number (or mix) of students admitted (via all channels and to possibly a different group of schools) has changed?

There have been public figures released about the mix of students, both a decade plus ago and in recent years. I would agree that these figures do not tell the precise number of foreign students admitted in any year (is the figure exactly the same or has it declined at all?). However, they do indicate that the mix has been stable.

[NYY1]

Ok, so we just got the result and we have been offered a local school which is almost 15 kms away. I have been checking the status of our neighbourhood school and they had vacancies, but still we couldnt get through there. My kid was in a private pre-school with majority of local kids and we could see he was thriving and hence decided that we wanted local school for his primary education also.

thanks for all the inputs

Hello. If you (and others) are looking at the vacancies at the start of Phase 2CS and subtracting off the SC/PR applicants, it is unlikely this difference is the total number of seats that will be made available in Phase 3.

First, some other schools will be oversubscribed in Phase 2CS and the SC/PR that were unsuccessful will be allocated somewhere else. Those kids will take up some of the spaces in the above calculation. Second, in all likelihood, there is some desired mix of SC/PR/foreign in the Phase 3 schools and this will play into the number of seats actually offered in Phase 3. Lastly, the schools may add students in subsequent years via other admission avenues.

Unfortunately, there may be a lot of factors that go into the final results, and that is probably why the outcome you got (offered a school quite far away) happens with some frequency.

Best of luck going forward. Regards.

[malcontent]

At least one reason the cost has been ratcheted up is to spur more citizenship applications. Part of the “sharper differentiation” policies, and partly intended to make Singaporeans feel like they benefit from being a citizen… but most I’ve talked to didn’t even know this change occurred, because the fees haven’t changed for them.

Obviously, this is bound to have some unintended consequences, here are a few off the top of my head:

- newly arrived families/would-be targets for future citizenry, can’t stomach the costs and bounce or just refuse move here

- the number of foreign students attending local schools has dropped, breeding a more insular future generation, less at ease in the global workplace

One potential plus side (maybe), they have been able to consolidate schools, decreasing the number of teachers needed, allowing (in theory) more quality with less quantity.

Maybe have some deeper thoughts about all of the circumstances involved when a school is closed or merged or what else can happen besides closing/merging schools. Perhaps you will find the following surprising:

Number of Primary Schools:
2012 = 175 (registration in 2011, the last year before certain rules were changed)
2023 = 182

Do you have any statistics or statements that show the number of foreign students in the local schools has declined? Just because foreign students are no longer guaranteed a spot in the P1 registration system doesn't necessarily mean there are fewer foreign students in the schools (number or as a % of the cohort). There are other avenues to admit foreign students and the success rate when applying for a space does not itself tell you how many were admitted.

Further, I wonder if some people could be mixing up the fact that certain people cannot get their child admitted to the school(s) they want vs. whether the total number (or mix) of students admitted (via all channels and to possibly a different group of schools) has changed?

There have been public figures released about the mix of students, both a decade plus ago and in recent years. I would agree that these figures do not tell the precise number of foreign students admitted in any year (is the figure exactly the same or has it declined at all?). However, they do indicate that the mix has been stable.

I don’t have data, but I do know that many schools here used to have dual sessions, and I believe most have moved to single session - that effectively cuts the number of seats available as much as half. The best stat would be total seats available, and how that has changed.

[NYY1]

I don’t have data, but I do know that many schools here used to have dual sessions, and I believe most have moved to single session - that effectively cuts the number of seats available as much as half. The best stat would be total seats available, and how that has changed.

Understand. With regard to dual sessions, it is correct that all are single session now. However, it wasn't the case that dual session meant 2x the number of kids in each level. First, sessions were often split by levels, and not all of the schools were dual session. If we look at the total number of primary kids (add up P1-P6) in recent years, I don't think there has ever been 2x that amount (or anywhere near it).

2017 PSLE cohort was 38,942 (register in 2011, born in 2005). Since, the PSLE cohort has ranged from ~37,000 to 40,000, and will likely be about 38,000 this year. Citizen births seem to fluctuate by a similar amount per year (i.e. in the low 30,000s, with a range of ~3,000 depending on the year).

Back up a bit and at one point the cohort size was ~50,000 per year. Currently, some of the secondary school cohorts are 20%-25% smaller than they were.

[BeeKayEss]

Ok, so we just got the result and we have been offered a local school which is almost 15 kms away. I have been checking the status of our neighbourhood school and they had vacancies, but still we couldnt get through there. My kid was in a private pre-school with majority of local kids and we could see he was thriving and hence decided that we wanted local school for his primary education also.

thanks for all the inputs

Hello. If you (and others) are looking at the vacancies at the start of Phase 2CS and subtracting off the SC/PR applicants, it is unlikely this difference is the total number of seats that will be made available in Phase 3.

First, some other schools will be oversubscribed in Phase 2CS and the SC/PR that were unsuccessful will be allocated somewhere else. Those kids will take up some of the spaces in the above calculation. Second, in all likelihood, there is some desired mix of SC/PR/foreign in the Phase 3 schools and this will play into the number of seats actually offered in Phase 3. Lastly, the schools may add students in subsequent years via other admission avenues.

Unfortunately, there may be a lot of factors that go into the final results, and that is probably why the outcome you got (offered a school quite far away) happens with some frequency.

Best of luck going forward. Regards.

Yes this makes sense and there are PR parents with foreign kids too, they seem to have got in near by schools

Also,there are other foreign kids from far off region who got into our locality schools this
year. So there is some crieteria MOE is checking, while allocating the school

Anyway , its all in past now !

[Lisafuller]

Ok, so we just got the result and we have been offered a local school which is almost 15 kms away. I have been checking the status of our neighbourhood school and they had vacancies, but still we couldnt get through there. My kid was in a private pre-school with majority of local kids and we could see he was thriving and hence decided that we wanted local school for his primary education also.

thanks for all the inputs

On the off chance that you don't get in closer, are you going with the 15km school or will you pursue other options?

[Lisafuller]

I’d guess the closest school that still has seats, simple as that. Seemed to be the case for my son and his cousin who lives in the same condo as us and applied during the same round of P1, both of them were offered spots at Cantonment Primary, not exactly close to where we live in the Holland area, but not horrible either.

Probably a bit more complicated than that. Maybe a more critical question is "Who gets the seats?" Can't say for sure but I think it is unlikely they just group everyone into different distance categories and then conduct a random ballot. Certainly, there are people in close proximity to a school that don't get a seat, and there are people that are allocated to a school an hour plus away (although this may have been the school that was closet to them with vacancy, or it was the closest school after all of the vacancies at nearer schools were given to other people).

Anyways, there are definitely many factors that play no part in Phase 2 applications. Not sure I would conclude that itself means they are irrelevant to Phase 3 applications.

I’d guess for the “who gets seats” among non-SC/PR students, first priority probably goes to those with a SC/PR parent, after that, I’d guess priority is probably based how long they have been residing in SG, the longer you’ve been the greater your odds of getting a seat. However, I agree with you - it’s probably a lot more complicated than that — I could see a Malaysian passport who just arrived getting priority over an ang moh passport, even if they’ve been here for years.

Absolutely. It's about who has been here and also who has the best chance of integrating.

[Lisafuller]

My kid was able to get a local school spot during Phase 3 registration. It is just very near, around 100 meters from our rented HDB.
The key is to study the previous year's balloting results. You need to identify which areas and which schools has more remaining slots to offer during Phase 3 registration.
Then I became strategic and move to this area two years before my kid will turn P1.
K1 & K2 were in PCF Sparkletots to show that we are willing to integrate on the local school system.
Don't know if that helps, but three of my friends did it and we are all successful.
There is no really guideline on how to achieve this but we just tried the most possible logical way we can get it. And perhaps you can also include prayers and luck.

This may increase the chance of your kids getting into local school, but there is no guarantee to that. In my case, my son also have his K1 & K2 in PCF Sparkletots, and the school that is located the closest to our place historically had a lot of available quotas in previous years. But suddenly for this year all the quotas are taken up during phase 2C.

Even after that, there are 2 more schools within our neighborhood that still has slots, but we are only offered a place in a school that is located 12km away

Sorry to hear that. Are you taking it? I guess you don't have much of a choice.

[Lisafuller]

MOE just released the latest school fees through 2026. For non-ASEAN passport holders, fees will rise to over $1k per month for primary and over $2k per month for secondary.

At least cars and houses are affordable to foreigners

+ additional charges for private vehicle hire. I wonder why schools are offered like this for foreigners? Seems like these schools have too many vacancies compared to neighbour hood schools and I am aware of couple more kids from my locality placed in the same school as my kid now.

At least one reason the cost has been ratcheted up is to spur more citizenship applications. Part of the “sharper differentiation” policies, and partly intended to make Singaporeans feel like they benefit from being a citizen… but most I’ve talked to didn’t even know this change occurred, because the fees haven’t changed for them.

Obviously, this is bound to have some unintended consequences, here are a few off the top of my head:

- newly arrived families/would-be targets for future citizenry, can’t stomach the costs and bounce or just refuse move here

- the number of foreign students attending local schools has dropped, breeding a more insular future generation, less at ease in the global workplace

One potential plus side (maybe), they have been able to consolidate schools, decreasing the number of teachers needed, allowing (in theory) more quality with less quantity.

To be fair though, there were never very many foreign kids in local schools to begin with.