ASK Nanyang Technological University student Tansey Tang how she did for her A levels, and she'll tell you she didn't take the exam.

Quiz her about her O-level results, and she will tell you the same thing.

So how exactly did this second-year English literature student make it to university?

Miss Tang, 20, took a route that is slowly growing in popularity among Singaporeans - she was home-schooled.

She is one of a handful of home-schooled students who have made it to tertiary institutions here.

While there are no official figures on home-schooled students studying in tertiary institutions here, experts The New Paper on Sunday spoke to say the number is still small.

Miss Tang's father, Mr Tng Chin Kok, 47, said: 'Everyone told her to go to a polytechnic as the chances of getting into a university were slim.'

Home schooling began for her 10 years ago, after she finished Primary 4 in a mainstream school here.

Her parents moved to Johor Baru to work as missionaries, and thought it was best to take their three children. Miss Tang has two siblings, Joe, 19, and Joy, 16.

There, they stumbled on Calvary Academy, which was less than six months old at the time, and uses an American home-school system. All three children were enrolled there.

Home-schooling can be done in a school-like environment like Calvary Academy or at home with a parent. Though it is not a regular school curriculum, they still study subjects like Maths, English and Science.

The system is called School of Tomorrow or ACE (Accelerated Christian Education).

All 60 to 70 students at Calvary Academy went to school every day.

They studied each subject on their own, at their own pace.

There were supervisors, who did not conduct classes like teachers but could clear doubts and answer questions.

There was no stressful competition.

Miss Tang said: 'I had to be disciplined and set my own goals regarding how much work I wanted to do each day.'

From the age of 15 till she completed her studies at 18, Miss Tang also worked as a student monitor for the supervisors, from 8am to 2pm every weekday.

The RM350 ($148) salary she got helped to pay her school fees of RM250 to RM300 a month.

Despite working and studying, she was the first student at Calvary Academy to finish Level 3, the highest of her home-schooling curriculum, a close equivalent to the A levels.

Students take tests to clear their levels. Their papers are marked by supervisors and sent to an agency which arranges the National Christian Schools Certificate from the UK.

With her certificates in hand, Miss Tang returned to Singapore to do her SAT Reasoning Test before applying to NTU, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Management University (SMU).

The SAT Reasoning Test, formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the Scholastic Assessment Test, is to assess how ready students are to apply to American universities.

EARLIER START

Miss Tang was just 18, a year younger than students who take the A-level route, when she started at NTU in August 2006.

Could she adjust? She said: 'I was worried at first about the workload and making friends... But the people here are nice and everything worked out.'

The Head of NTU's English Department, Dr Neil Murphy, said: 'With two years of her studies completed, it is obvious to my colleagues and me that Tansey is one of our very top students.

'It is difficult to know if this is so because of her educational background but it is very clear that she has an original mind, writes excellent prose and has a very engaging, and strong personality, in the best possible sense.'

Another home-schooled tertiary student here is Miss Antoinette Goh, a nursing student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. She has made it to the poly's dean's list.

Miss Goh, 19, had just finished the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) when her parents proposed home-schooling her with her two brothers, Joash and Gideon, now 17 and 15. She agreed.

Said her mother, Mrs Jannette Goh, 45: 'I wanted to take ownership of what my children were learning, redeem my authority as a parent and rescue my children from the stresses of the educational system.'

Mrs Goh, stayed home to teach her children. Their home-school lesson plan included subjects like Maths, English and Social Studies but also had allocated time-slots for household chores and religious studies.

Miss Goh said she did not find the switch too hard to handle.

'It was weird at first, not having to wake up as early and go to school. I had to get used to a whole new system,' she said.

She credits her parents for helping her cope. 'They gave me a lot of emotional support. I remember when I was struggling with algebra my mother always offered her help and told me I could do it,' she said.

Though she was doing the same programme as Tang, Miss Goh opted to stop home-schooling at Level 2.

She explained: 'I felt nursing was my calling. And because it is such a hands-on job, I decided... to go to poly to get a good foundation in the field.'

GOOD ENOUGH

She applied to the polytechnic through the Direct Admissions Exercise. Her Level 2 transcripts which reflected her home-school test scores were good enough to be converted to an O-level score of 7 points.

She feels that the training to set goals during her home-schooling days helped her cope. 'In poly, there are many different projects and deadlines, goal-setting helps me to plan what has to be done,' she said.

Added her mother: 'I always advise parents to go into home-schooling with their eyes wide open. There is a lot of discipline and sacrifice involved.

'But seeing Antoinette relating well with her school friends and making it to the top of her cohort, is my consolation and reward.'

Shila Naidu, newsroom intern

This article was first published in The New Paper on June 1, 2008.