The Education Ministry will not be going ahead with plans for a
single intake of students for junior colleges and centralised
institutes from March next year.
Instead, it wants to implement a single intake system in the middle
or end of January each year.
And it expects to introduce this within a few years following a
review of the academic calendar of JCs and the centralised
institutes.
Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam says by dropping next
year's single March intake plan, teachers, students and parents
will not have to undergo two major adjustments within a few
years.
So the JCs and centralised institutes will continue with the
current academic calendar and two intakes system for the time
being.
The first intake is in November/December, based on the Provisional
Pre-U One Admission Exercise, and the second is the Joint
Admissions Exercise in February.
Schools and students say it's not a problem, even though they now
have to take the preliminary exams much more seriously.
"For Dunman High School we're not really affected by the change
because most of our students are motivated and self-disciplined
anyway. And want to do well for the prelim-exams, whether they
count towards JC admission or not," said Sng Chern Wei, Principal
of Dunman High School.
Wong Kin Keong, a secondary four student said: "I don't think it's
a problem because all this time, I take prelims as a gauge for my
'O' level. I'll still take prelims as seriously as before so that I
can gauge how well I'll do for the 'O' levels."
"It doesn't really seem like much difference to me. The prelims are
still important so you can't really ignore it," said another
secondary four student Wong Xiao Tong.
They will also benefit from some improvements when they apply for
JCs next year.
Students across institutes will study core topics in the first
three months.
So even if 40% of the students move from one JC to another, they
would have studied the same subject matter in the different
institutes.
Cindia Lui, a first year student at Anderson Junior College said:
"I'd prefer one intake in January as that will solve a lot of
administrative problems for the school. We won't have so many
students appealing as that in the first three months. It'll also
solve a lot of problems for the teachers."
Committing to a single intake in January instead of March also mean
the entire school system will be in sync with Primary and Secondary
schools, an issue parents were concerned about.
Releasing the results in January may also benefit polytechnic
students, as polytechnics will have the flexibility of bringing
forward their calendar and make their holidays in sync with the
rest of the schools.
- CNA