Channel NewsAsia - Thursday, March
20
SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) plans to hold a
centralised admissions exercise annually for international students
seeking admission to public schools in Singapore.
The MOE says this is to simplify school applications by
international students.
Currently, international students seeking admission to public
schools have to apply directly to the schools they are interested
in.
Most apply to more than one school to increase their chances of
admission and are often required to sit for different admission
tests by the schools they are applying to.
The first centralised exercise will be for new international
students seeking admission to Singapore schools in 2009, and will
involve a centralised test that is tentatively scheduled to be held
in September/October 2008.
The exercise will be for new international students seeking
admission into Primary 2—5 and Secondary 1—3 levels.
Singapore public schools generally do not admit international
students directly into Primary 6 and Secondary 4 as it would not be
in the interest of international students to be admitted during
these critical examination years.
The centralised test will comprise English and Mathematics
papers that will assess the applicants’ English literacy, numeracy
and reasoning abilities. — CNA/ir