SINGAPORE - Students keen on applying for direct admission to secondary schools and junior colleges (JCs) may do so from May 7.

Those who wish to apply for early admission to the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) can start doing so from May 21. Early admissions to polytechnics start on June 3.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said in a release on May 6 that the Direct School Admission (DSA) exercise allows students to gain entry to secondary schools and JCs based on interests, aptitude and potential, beyond their performance at the national examinations.

Secondary schools and JCs can admit up to 20 per cent of their students through DSA, the ministry added.

The ministry did not specify how many schools are participating in 2024’s DSA exercise.

In a parliamentary reply in February, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said the number of students admitted to secondary schools through DSA had gone up from about 3,500 in 2019 to about 4,400 in 2023.

Students who take part in DSA will still be required to sit the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) or O-level examinations. If their DSA applications are successful, students will be informed by the respective schools they applied to, and will need to decide whether to take up the offer before their exam results are released, said MOE.

Students who accept their DSA offers will be guaranteed a place in the specific secondary school they applied to, provided their PSLE results meet the minimum requirement for a posting group that the school admits students from.

This comes with the implementation of full subject-based banding starting from the 2024 Secondary 1 cohort, where students take subjects at a higher or lower level based on their strengths, and students will be posted through three posting groups: G1, G2 or G3.

G1 will roughly correspond to today’s Normal (Technical) standard, G2 to Normal (Academic) standard, and G3 to Express standard.

Similarly, those who applied to JCs will be guaranteed a spot provided that their O-level results meet the minimum requirements for admission.

Once an offer of admission through DSA has been accepted, students will not be eligible to participate in the S1 posting exercise, or Joint Admissions Exercise, or be allowed to transfer to another school after obtaining their examination results.

Primary school pupils and their parents may submit DSA applications via www.moe.gov.sg/dsa-sec from 11am on May 7 to 3pm on June 3.

Applicants need to fill in only one online form indicating up to three choices of school and talent area offered by the school. Applicants can apply to the same school for a maximum of only two times.

Students applying for DSA to JCs can go to www.moe.gov.sg/dsa-jc for more information, or visit the JCs’ websites for the application period, procedures and selection criteria, as these vary between schools.

Early admissions for polytechnics

Under the Early Admissions Exercise (EAE) for graduating O-level and ITE students, those who are successful in their applications will receive conditional offers before the release of their exam results.

The EAE provides a pathway for applicants to be considered beyond academic grades, and based on their aptitude and interest in a specific course.

For applicants interested to apply via EAE to polytechnics, final-year ITE students can apply from June 6 to 12, while O-level students can apply from June 20 to 26. More information can be found at https://eae.polytechnic.edu.sg/

Successful applicants under the polytechnic EAE will be given conditional offers before receiving their final examination results. For the conditional offer to be confirmed, their results must meet the minimum entry requirements for the offered polytechnic course, which can be found on the respective polytechnics’ websites.

Students who accept an offer via the polytechnic EAE and have confirmed their place will not be able to participate in other polytechnic admission exercises or transfer courses within polytechnics.

The same process applies to graduating N- and O-level students who apply for early admission to Nitec and Higher Nitec courses. The application period runs from May 21 to 28.

Working adults with at least two years of relevant working experience can also participate in the EAE, and apply to polytechnics from June 3 to 30, or to ITE from May 21 to 28.