MOE: First time schools without Sec 1

MOE: First time schools without Sec 1

With the falling number of live births over the years, there will be a corresponding fall in demand for secondary school places, said the Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday.

In more mature estates where the demand for places is lower, this can result in some schools having lower enrolments.

Since there will be fewer Secondary 1 students next year, seven secondary schools will not be receiving a Secondary 1 cohort, said MOE.

They are Siglap, Si Ling, Balestier Hill, Henderson, MacPherson, North View and Pioneer secondary schools.

INSUFFICIENT DEMAND

"Since MOE started to centrally post students under the S1 Posting Exercise, this is the first time that there are secondary schools that did not have sufficient demand in their area to open classes," an MOE spokesman said in an e-mail reply to The New Paper's queries.

Last year, the seven schools had on average opened three Secondary 1 classes. This year, they did not have sufficient demand to form a critical mass for classes, the ministry said.

MOE also said that about 38,600 students were successfully posted to secondary schools based on their merit and choice, and they will begin classes on Jan 4.

There has been a significant drop in the number of students enrolling in Secondary 1.

As it may be challenging for low-enrolment schools to offer a wide range of educational programmes and co-curricular activities, MOE is looking into merging a number of low-enrolment schools to ensure a "critical mass" for the schools.

Details on the plans for mergers will be provided early next year.


This article was first published on December 24, 2015.
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