Less than half of pupils in Gifted Education Programme lived in HDB flats based on recent data

SINGAPORE — Less than half the pupils in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) came from public housing each year for the past five years.

And GEP pupils over the same period were drawn from about three in five primary schools, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said in a written parliamentary reply on Wednesday (March 9).

Mr Chan said 45 per cent of them lived in Housing and Development Board flats.

He was responding to Workers' Party Member of Parliament for Aljunied Group Representation Constituency Leon Perera who asked about the profile of students admitted into this programme.

The GEP allows gifted students to follow the regular curriculum and take the same examinations as those in the mainstream, but with additional subjects and greater depth of coverage and exposure to varied learning experiences such as project work and field trips.

This is not the first time Mr Perera had asked about the profile of students in education programmes.

In January, he had asked about the annual proportion of Public Service Commission scholarship recipients from Raffles Institution and Hwa Chong Institution as well as those from other junior colleges, polytechnics and institutes of higher learning. This was in addition to the breakdown of these students by housing type.

Mr Chan then said that the percentage of scholarships awarded to students from these schools has dropped in the last three years, with both schools receiving less than half the total number of awards given on average between 2019 and 2021.