Primary 1 Registration Exercise

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar asked the Minister for Education whether the Ministry plans to review the Primary 1 registration process in light of feedback from residents who are not able to get a place for their children even though they live within 1 km of the school.

Mr Heng Swee Keat: We carefully review public feedback after the Primary 1 (P1) registration exercise. The P1 registration framework must reflect a careful balance of considerations and the current framework does so by allocating places based on a set of transparent criteria.

Parents and families have diverse needs and circumstances. The P1 registration framework needs to balance the interests of different groups of parents and stakeholders.

We agree that proximity is an important consideration, and it is indeed one key consideration in the P1 registration framework. But it cannot be the sole consideration. Other considerations that we need to take into account include the presence of siblings, parental ties to the school and community involvement. To elaborate, Phase 1 of the P1 Registration Exercise gives priority to parents who already have a child studying at the school of choice. Phase 2 recognises the contributions and ties that parents have with the school. For schools to thrive, the support of key partners like former students and the community are critical, as they help to build up and maintain a school's tradition and ethos, and support its students. However, these considerations do not guarantee a place in the school of choice as admission each year depends on the demand for and availability of school places in the particular school.

Nevertheless, even though we cannot ensure that a child can gain admission to the school of choice even one that is within 1 km of his or her home, MOE seeks to ensure that every child can gain admission to a primary school which is a reasonable distance from his or her home.

Page: 894