Since 2004, MOE has introduced a phased plan to provide greater flexibility in the secondary and junior college (JC) school admission system. The plan includes:

a. allowing schools with the Integrated Programme (IP) full discretion in admissions;

b. enhancing the autonomy of Autonomous Schools (AS) and Independent Schools (IS) by:

           i. increasing their level of discretionary places to 10% and 20% respectively, and

          ii. allowing them to adopt their own merit-based admission criteria for these places;

c. extending discretion on admissions to mainstream secondary schools that are able to develop strong niche programmes; and

d. giving discretion on admissions to all JCs.

18 May 2006

Based on their track record of achievements and their development plans for their niche areas, the following 12 schools (in alphabetical order) have been approved by MOE to offer discretionary places under the DSA-Sec Exercise for schools with approved niche programmes:

Selection Stage (26 Jun 06 to 31 Aug 06)

1. Each participating school will conduct its own selection exercise during the Selection Stage. Students who apply to a participating school, are shortlisted to participate in the school’s selection exercise. If they meet the admission criteria of the school, they will be offered confirmed places in the school (i.e. confirmed Offers).

2. Some students may be placed on the school’s waiting list if the school wishes to consider their application at a later stage, subject to available vacancies. The students who do not meet the admission criteria of the school will not be accepted under the DSA-Sec Exercise. All participating students will be notified of the outcome (i.e. confirmed offers, waiting list, rejected) by the end of this stage.

3. Students with Confirmed Offers are guaranteed a place in each school that has extended them an offer, provided that they satisfy the following:

a. they indicate the school as one of their choices¹ during the Exercise School Preference Stage, and

b. they qualify for an academic course which is offered by the school [Special / Express / Normal (Academic) / Normal (Technical)].

4. Students on the waiting list of a school will be considered for admission, provided that they satisfy the following:

a. they indicate the school as one of their choices² during the Exercise Preference Stage,

b. they qualify for an academic course which is offered by the school [Special / Express / Normal (Academic) / Normal (Technical)], and

c. the school has vacancies after the Exercise School Preference Stage.

(The results will be known at the Results Release Stage.)

Exercise School Preference Stage (12 Oct 06 to 18 Oct 06)

5. Before 12 Oct 06, all students who have received confirmed offers or who were placed on a school’s waiting list during the selection stage will be issued with a form through their primary schools. This is to allow them to state their order of school preferences.

6. Some students may receive confirmed offers and/or notices about being on the waiting list from more than one school. Each student can indicate his order of preference for these schools. Once a student has exercised his school preference for a confirmed offer or one on waiting list, and is accepted, he will not be able to participate in the centralised Secondary One Posting Exercise.

7. Once a student is allocated a school place from a higher order of preference school, the other confirmed offers in the lower order of preference schools will be freed up and offered to other students on the schools' waiting lists.

8. To do this, MOE will run a central clearing system after the Exercise School Preference Stage to match students’ order of preferences against how each school has ranked the students on its waiting list according to the school’s admission criteria.

Results Release Stage – late Nov 06

9. The results of the DSA-Sec Exercise will be released in late Nov 06, together with the PSLE results. All students, regardless of whether they took part in the DSASec Exercise or not, will be issued with an Option Form during the centralised Secondary One Posting Exercise.

10. Successful DSA-Sec applicants will be informed of the schools they have been admitted into. Since these places have already been reserved for them, these students will not be allowed to participate in the Secondary One Posting Exercise. For those who are eligible for elective programmes, they can indicate their interest in the Option Form.

11. Unsuccessful DSA-Sec applicants will be notified that none of the schools they had indicated a preference for are able to offer them a place. Hence, they will be given the option to indicate their choices of schools in the centralised Secondary One Posting Exercise. These students may still opt for the schools that had not been able to offer them a place under the DSA-Sec Exercise if they wish, as only a certain percentage of places in these schools are made available during the DSA-Sec Exercise.

12. Refer to Annex C1 for a flowchart of the DSA-SEC Exercise.

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¹ Three choices are given.

² Three choices are given.