Any Foreign kid got to Local School (2022)

[Lisafuller]

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.

I believe this is true. Don't think it has reduced the number of seats available that significantly though.

[therat]

during 80s, primary and secondary have class size of 44/45
primary has morning class and afternoon class from Pri 1 to Pri 6.

Few yrs back, MOE reduce the class size to 33-36. So that the teacher can spend abit more time on every students. and move to single session.
i believe now most school is in single session unless they restricted by the school building size.

[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

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

No, we will pursue this for now as we had strong feeling to go for local school

[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

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

You're right, we don't really have much choice. Beggar cannot choose, so we are going to take it.

[malcontent]

You're right, we don't really have much choice. Beggar cannot choose, so we are going to take it.

Everyone has a choice, but few realize or fully exercise it.

[newsingaporeuser]

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.

I know this post is a year old and I'm picking up on one point, but you suggest the first priority would go to non-SC/PR students who have a SC/PR parent. Is this based on (anecdotal) evidence or is this as you say a guess?
For example, do you think this would encourage parents with a SC/PR parent with sons not to take up PR/SC?

[malcontent]

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.

I know this post is a year old and I'm picking up on one point, but you suggest the first priority would go to non-SC/PR students who have a SC/PR parent. Is this based on (anecdotal) evidence or is this as you say a guess?
For example, do you think this would encourage parents with a SC/PR parent with sons not to take up PR/SC?

Anecdotal evidence. For example, my son and his cousin (both DP holders with PR parents, staying in Singapore long-term) were successful in getting places in local schools during the P1 exercise (my son never enrolled, but his cousin did). This was around the same time that large numbers of DP holders were getting turned away.

I don’t believe it discourages PR, on the contrary, you’re financially incentivized to do so considering the savings in tuition rates. In my nephew’s case, they intend to pull him (S4) and his brother (P6) out of Singapore local school next year because the tuition bill just isn’t worth it.

[newsingaporeuser]

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.

I know this post is a year old and I'm picking up on one point, but you suggest the first priority would go to non-SC/PR students who have a SC/PR parent. Is this based on (anecdotal) evidence or is this as you say a guess?
For example, do you think this would encourage parents with a SC/PR parent with sons not to take up PR/SC?

Anecdotal evidence. For example, my son and his cousin (both DP holders with PR parents, staying in Singapore long-term) were successful in getting places in local schools during the P1 exercise (my son never enrolled, but his cousin did). This was around the same time that large numbers of DP holders were getting turned away.

I don’t believe it discourages PR, on the contrary, you’re financially incentivized to do so considering the savings in tuition rates. In my nephew’s case, they intend to pull him (S4) and his brother (P6) out of Singapore local school next year because the tuition bill just isn’t worth it.

Ah thanks a lot for this. How far away was this local school in the case of your son and his cousin? Was it reasonably close by?

[malcontent]

I know this post is a year old and I'm picking up on one point, but you suggest the first priority would go to non-SC/PR students who have a SC/PR parent. Is this based on (anecdotal) evidence or is this as you say a guess?
For example, do you think this would encourage parents with a SC/PR parent with sons not to take up PR/SC?

Anecdotal evidence. For example, my son and his cousin (both DP holders with PR parents, staying in Singapore long-term) were successful in getting places in local schools during the P1 exercise (my son never enrolled, but his cousin did). This was around the same time that large numbers of DP holders were getting turned away.

I don’t believe it discourages PR, on the contrary, you’re financially incentivized to do so considering the savings in tuition rates. In my nephew’s case, they intend to pull him (S4) and his brother (P6) out of Singapore local school next year because the tuition bill just isn’t worth it.

Ah thanks a lot for this. How far away was this local school in the case of your son and his cousin? Was it reasonably close by?

We had applied to the neighborhood school down the road (Queenstown), but no luck… so they assigned both of our kids to a school in Tanjong Pagar, which wasn’t exactly close by, but wasn’t exactly unreasonable either. His cousin did the full 6 years there… his parents drove him there every day and it wasn’t too bad.

[newsingaporeuser]

Anecdotal evidence. For example, my son and his cousin (both DP holders with PR parents, staying in Singapore long-term) were successful in getting places in local schools during the P1 exercise (my son never enrolled, but his cousin did). This was around the same time that large numbers of DP holders were getting turned away.

I don’t believe it discourages PR, on the contrary, you’re financially incentivized to do so considering the savings in tuition rates. In my nephew’s case, they intend to pull him (S4) and his brother (P6) out of Singapore local school next year because the tuition bill just isn’t worth it.

Ah thanks a lot for this. How far away was this local school in the case of your son and his cousin? Was it reasonably close by?

We had applied to the neighborhood school down the road (Queenstown), but no luck… so they assigned both of our kids to a school in Tanjong Pagar, which wasn’t exactly close by, but wasn’t exactly unreasonable either. His cousin did the full 6 years there… his parents drove him there every day and it wasn’t too bad.

Thanks v much.

[lazarus213]

Hi! Has anyone received their result letters for foreigner P1 registration into local schools yet? Is there visibility regarding when in October do they usually start sending out these letters?

Thanks!