Grade error in system prompted Republic Poly to revoke places of some students
Some rejected by Republic Poly say they had keyed in actual grades in system
Student Tan Mingjie keyed in a C6 grade for his O level Combined Science paper in the system, but when he turned up for the first day of school at Republic Polytechnic (RP) after completing the matriculation process, he was told that it had shown up as a C5.
As a result, his place in RP's Common Engineering course was revoked.
Yesterday, The New Paper reported that 16 students had been mistakenly admitted to RP. The polytechnic revoked their letters of acceptance on the first day of school.
Besides 17-year-old Mingjie, two other students TNP spoke to yesterday said the issue had to do with discrepancies when they keyed in their results.
Mr Shanmugasundar W, RP's registrar, did not specifically answer queries about the nature of the discrepancies, but told TNP: "All of the students have been offered places in other Institute of Technical Education (ITE) or polytechnic courses, either to the courses they had originally been posted to in the Joint Admissions Exercise, or other courses with available vacancies for which they met the minimum requirements."
Many of the students TNP spoke to said that RP had helped them secure a place in other institutions.
But Muhammad Irfan Sazali says he was not one of them.
The 18-year-old was over the moon when he received the acceptance letter from RP, but his world came crashing down when he was asked to leave on the first day of school.
Irfan told TNP that the school had said he had lied about his co-curricular activity (CCA) grade.
Irfan had scored a B3, which would have allowed him to deduct one point from his aggregate score of 28.
While he remembers keying in the B3 into the system, somehow, it registered an A1.
After being told that his place would be revoked, he had asked RP's staff about what he should do.
"They told me I could either retake my O levels, go to ITE, or else just enlist for national service," he recounted.
APPEAL TURNED DOWN
His mother, Madam Ashida Sazali Ng, 46, visited the school that morning to make an appeal, but it was turned down.
While RP's registrar assured them that the school would get in touch with ITE and they would be updated later that day , Irfan failed to hear from RP and his parents decided to go to ITE College West themselves that evening.
Irfan said that ITE's section heads were very accommodating, and advised him to take up the Rapid Transit Technology course, which still had vacancies.He has since settled in as a student there.
Jarwyne Andal Garcia, 16, has also settled in at ITE College Central.
His place in RP was also revoked due to a discrepancy in his CCA grade.
He is unhappy over the way the issue was handled by RP.
"They should have verified it (grades) earlier, instead of doing it when we were about to start our first day," he said.
Similarly upset, Madam Ashida said: "My son kept apologising to my husband and me for being a disappointment. As a mother, how would you feel when you see your son like that?"
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