More than 80 per cent of pupils posted to one of their first 3 secondary school choices
More than 80 per cent of pupils were posted to a secondary school within their first three choices for the 2022 Secondary 1 posting exercise.
On a broader level, more than 90 per cent of pupils were posted to one within their six choices, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said on Thursday, in response to press queries.
An MOE spokesman said that in cases of a tie, they were tie-broken by citizenship and school choice order. He added that about 10 per cent of pupils underwent computerised balloting.
“These observations are comparable to previous years, including 2021,” said the spokesman.
According to the MOE’s website, pupils with better scores are posted to their top choices first. Where scores are equal, tie-breakers will be used – up to three if necessary – in this order: citizenship, order of school choices and computerised balloting.
Each pupil is required to choose six secondary schools and rank them in order of preference for the Secondary 1 posting exercise.
MOE’s website states that when pupils are not placed in any of their choices, they will be allocated to the nearest school vacancies, based on their registered address and Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) score.
The 2022 batch of Primary 6 pupils are the second batch to sit the PSLE under a new scoring system, where pupils are given an achievement level (AL) ranging from one to eight for each subject, instead of grades such as A* to E.
A PSLE score is now the sum of a pupil’s ALs, with the best possible total score being four, and 32 the worst.
On Thursday, the MOE spokesman said that the posting outcomes for the 2022 PSLE cohort are comparable with that of the previous cohort.
“This suggests that students and their parents, like in previous years, have generally made informed school choices by selecting a range of schools with different cut-off points that included those that the student was able to meet,” he added.
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