Students who
took their O levels last year produced the best results in
decades.
So, it would
have been reasonable to expect the entry requirements of
polytechnic courses to have been raised accordingly.
However, the
bar to between 16 per cent and 33 per cent of the courses offered
at the various polytechnics this year was, in fact, lower than last
year. These courses are in areas such as design, early childhood
and management.
To qualify
for a polytechnic, a student's total score for English and four
other subjects must not exceed 26. The lower the score, the better
the student's chance of getting a place in a polytechnic and the
course of his choice.
For some
courses this year, however, the entry-point score or cut-off was
increased by one to three points.
A reason for
the lower entry bar for certain courses, said education experts,
may be the smaller size of last year's O-level cohort.
The Education
Ministry said late last month that entry scores - based on the last
students posted to courses - may fluctuate from year to year
"depending on factors such as student interest, performance of the
cohort and cohort size".
Dr Timothy
Chan, director of SIM Global Education's academic division, said
this could lead to lower demand for places in some courses.
A total of
29,723 students took the O-level examination last year, compared
with 30,964 in 2014.
Nevertheless,
Dr Chan observed, some courses, such as international business,
still maintain very low cut-off points as their intake sizes are
kept small.
Only between
14 per cent and 30 per cent of courses in areas such as cyber
security, information technology and applied sciences had higher
entry requirements this year, down from 50 per cent to 70 per cent
the previous year.
This is
despite last year's cohort outperforming their seniors.
Of the
students who took the national exam, 83.8 per cent attained at
least five passes, surpassing the 83.3 per cent mark set by the
2014 cohort, which was the first to breach the 83 per cent
mark.
The Education
Ministry said late last month that entry scores - based on the last
students posted to courses - may fluctuate from year to year
"depending on factors such as student interest, performance of the
cohort and cohort size".
This year,
about 27,600 students were posted to a post-secondary institution.
Of these, 56 per cent went to polytechnics, compared with 58 per
cent last year.
Student Nurul
Syafiqah Ya'cob, 17, secured a place in Republic Polytechnic's
biomedical sciences diploma programme. Its entry requirement this
year was 14 points, a point lower than last year.
"Even though
the junior colleges offer subjects like biology and chemistry,
there are other subjects I have to take. But I would like to focus
only on biomedical sciences," she said. "I am more of a hands-on
person, and I think the polytechnic route suits me better."
