MOE restricts secondary school transfers for 2016

Secondary 1 students will find it harder to transfer to a different school.

The Straits Times recently covered a new directive from the Ministry of Education (MOE) that restricts the transfer of secondary 1 students.

Last month, MOE stated that all secondary schools are not to take in transfer students with a Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) scores that did not meet a school's cut-off points during the transfer period.

In the past, schools with empty slots after the Secondary 1 posting could accept students with scores lower than the cut-off points who appeal.

The posting exercise uses Primary 6 pupils's PSLE score to determine the school they will be posted to. A cut-off point is set to determine who gets the last spot in a school.

With the results of the posting exercise coming out last Tuesday, the soon-to-be secondary 1 students can wish to transfer to another school through the following means.

• Transfer to a different school on the grounds of special needs
• Submit appeals

School leaders have mentioned that such a measure is placed to reduce the traffic of students between schools after the posting period.

MOE has been reported to issue the statement that the posting exercise is based on "objective and transparent measures of academic merit" and appeals afterwards "should be aligned to these same principles, to be fair to the other students".

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