Many Singaporean parents hoping to score a place for their children in a dream primary school won’t have it easy this year, thanks to an imbalanced applicant to vacancy ratio for primary schools islandwide.
Despite 63 other local schools having about 3,800 slots available this year, applicants were oversubscribed for 22 other ‘popular’ primary schools instead.
Places at popular local schools are filling fast, with 22 primary schools reportedly going into a ballot phase.
One of the final phases, Phase 2C begins for children & parents with no connections to any school on Monday (29 Jul).
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of primary schools that were oversubscribed & likely subject to a ballot:
In comparison, the odds for 2018’s situation were similarly stacked — 27 primary schools had more applicants than vacancies, with 24 holding a ballot, reports The Straits Times.
Sifting through the data on the site, we noticed that a large number of primary schools went unsubscribed in Phase 2B.
63 out of 185 to be exact — about 34% of all primary-level schools in Singapore. That’s like saying 1 in 3 primary schools in Singapore had no one register their interest for a slot in Phase 2B.
Here’s the complete list of the schools that received 0 subscribers in Phase 2B:
In total, that’s close to 3,800 slots that went unsubscribed in Phase 2B alone. You may check the full results at this link.
This could also be due to the schools not having a parent volunteer scheme, as Phase 2B is for applicants who can enter for these reasons:
(a) Child whose parent is a parent volunteer and has contributed 40 hours service to the school.
(b) Child whose parent is endorsed by a church/clan member directly connected with the primary school.
(c) Child whose parent is endorsed as an active community leader.
About 38,000 children born between 2 Jan 2013, and 1 Jan 2014 are due to enter primary school in 2020 — the cohort is a little smaller than last year’s number.
40,600 babies born in the Zodiac Year of the Dragon (2012) saw 2,600 extra places across 184 primary schools created to accommodate them in 2018.
To reiterate, Phase 2C – the next phase beginning on Monday (29 Jul) – is for all children who are eligible for Primary 1 in 2020 but aren’t registered in a primary school yet.
From the data, it can be observed that there Singaporean parents do seem to prefer certain schools over the less subscribed ones.
We recall that ex-Education Minister Heng Swee Keat once said in 2012,
Every school (is) a good school.
As for whether parents are truly comfortable with entering their children in any primary school, regardless of whether it’s newly opened, or is perceived as a ‘popular’ school, it still remains unclear.
But the numbers do give insight as to which schools still have vacancies remaining at later stages, for parents who just want to secure a place for their children.
All the best to our future Primary 1 applicants, and may the odds be in your favour if it does come down to a ballot for you.
Your parents will receive the balloting results via text message on Friday (26 Jul).
Featured image from Google Maps, Google Maps & Ministry of Education.
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