To ease stress, limit Direct School Admission applications to one per pupil

Mr Jake Goh’s commentary “Fine-tuning the Direct School Admission scheme” (April 11) struck a chord with me.

The scheme was introduced to promote holistic education and provide pupils with an opportunity to enter secondary school based on their achievements and talents, before the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) results are released.

Some parents, though, see it as a backup for enrolling their children in top secondary schools in case their PSLE results are not good enough.

So, pupils with low T-scores might enter top schools via the Direct School Admission (DSA) exercise, but have problems catching up with their peers.

The Education Ministry should address this by raising the minimum entry requirement for applicants to at least 10 points from the school’s cut-off point.

I know of many parents who opt for three or more schools offering the DSA and put their children through rigorous portfolio preparations, DSA enrichment classes and interview training — time that should be spent preparing for the PSLE instead.

This seems like coerced talent development, rather than qualifying for the DSA based on natural talent.

Parents should perhaps put themselves in their children’s shoes and ask themselves if they would want this undue stress added to the workload that schools give to prepare pupils for the PSLE. They should channel their efforts to prepare their children for only one DSA school, based on their children’s strengths, and not have the mentality that more is better in order to qualify for the DSA.

To counter the stress from and competition for the DSA, the ministry could perhaps allow only one application per pupil, so he does not get more than one confirmed offer, as Mr Goh highlighted. This would also allow more pupils to receive such offers.