Under the current primary one school registration system, the child of a citizen is assigned equal ranking as the child of a permanent resident (PR) in getting enrolled into the primary school of choice. This means that the child of a PR, be it from China, India, Malaysia who may have only recently settled in Singapore, will get the same chance of entering into primary school of his/her choice compared to the child of a citizen, who has spent most of his life, borne, grew up and live in Singapore.
I wonder if factors such as national service performed by a male citizen (2.5 years of active service and 13 years of reserve services) were ever considered by the government before deciding on such an arrangement.
It would be extremely difficult for me as a male citizen of Singapore who has served national service to accept that my child may lose out to a child of a PR in getting enrolled in a school of choice (with better resources and facilities) as we are assigned the same ranking.
Some may argue that the PRs also contribute to our economy so they should be allotted equal rankings, but even if we were to disregard or ignore the national services served by our citizens, the question we should still ask ourselves is in times of a national crisis, whose children are more likely to stay behind to defend Singapore.
Lately, high profile, ultra rich PRs have been enrolling their children into premier primary schools through participation in parental volunteer programme (PV). PV normally requires 40 to 80 hours of volunteer work and the children of the volunteers will in return get priority during the registration exercise. As PV is opened to both citizens and PRs, it means that the child of a PR who participated in the PV will have priority over the child of a citizen who has not.
40 to 80 hours of volunteer service takes precedence over 2.5 years of active service plus 13 years of reserved services, does it make sense?
I wonder if factors such as national service performed by a male citizen (2.5 years of active service and 13 years of reserve services) were ever considered by the government before deciding on such an arrangement.
It would be extremely difficult for me as a male citizen of Singapore who has served national service to accept that my child may lose out to a child of a PR in getting enrolled in a school of choice (with better resources and facilities) as we are assigned the same ranking.
Some may argue that the PRs also contribute to our economy so they should be allotted equal rankings, but even if we were to disregard or ignore the national services served by our citizens, the question we should still ask ourselves is in times of a national crisis, whose children are more likely to stay behind to defend Singapore.
Lately, high profile, ultra rich PRs have been enrolling their children into premier primary schools through participation in parental volunteer programme (PV). PV normally requires 40 to 80 hours of volunteer work and the children of the volunteers will in return get priority during the registration exercise. As PV is opened to both citizens and PRs, it means that the child of a PR who participated in the PV will have priority over the child of a citizen who has not.
40 to 80 hours of volunteer service takes precedence over 2.5 years of active service plus 13 years of reserved services, does it make sense?