By Jane Ng

KEEN to win over O-level school leavers, who now get only a single shot at choosing a junior college, at least one school is rolling out the red carpet to give them a taste of post-secondary life.

Nanyang Junior College has invited about 200 secondary school students to take part in a three-day immersion programme in January to introduce them to the school.

Invitations have gone to their customary feeder schools, such as Xinmin Secondary, Mayflower Secondary and Chung Cheng High (Yishun), for the daily 8am to 5pm programme that will take place during the holidays in January.

The 16-year-olds will get lectures in subjects such as economics and General Paper. They will also get to try their hands at co-curricular activities, mingle with seniors and speak to teachers.

Next year, for the first time, students will enter junior college in February, after the O-level results are released in early January.

In the past, school leavers had the first three months of the year to try out a JC based on their preliminary results before they got their actual O-level results.

Because many students would switch schools in March, the move was made to have them go in later.

In some JCs, up to half of the students leave because their results do not qualify them to stay on; others lose students who did better than expected and want to move to another school.

Teachers say the old system was a nightmare: They had to re-teach everything when new students came on board, for example.

But the single intake will also mean some trade-offs, said Nanyang JC principal Kwek Hiok Chuang.

'Without the first three months to try out a school, students will have to do a lot of research on their own,' he said. 'So we decided to create this opportunity to let them see what JC life is about.'

The programme gives Nanyang JC - and JCs in general - a head start.

'The purpose is not just to persuade them to join us, but to also let them see what a typical JC offers. This will help them decide between a JC and a polytechnic,' Mr Kwek said.

Natasha Lim, 16, a Secondary 4 student at CHIJ St Nicholas, has signed up for the programme, hoping to find some answers either way.

'I have not decided whether to go to a polytechnic or JC. The programme will be helpful because it will provide an overview of the system,' she said.

Sunshine Huang, 16, a Secondary 4 student from Chung Cheng High (Yishun), said: 'I've heard that JC is very different from secondary school, that there's no spoon-feeding and it's a lecture-tutorial system. I want to see it before deciding.'

Five other JCs contacted said they would be organising one-day open houses in January and orientations when school begins in February.

Nanyang JC still has vacancies for another 30 students for its three-day programme. To register, visit www.nanyangjc.org

janeng@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 6 Oct, 2008.

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