Record 16,000 apply for direct school admission

Bumper crop of Dragon Year kids, scheme's growing popularity could be behind spike

- Jane Ng

A record number of 16,000 Primary 6 pupils have applied for the Direct School Admission (DSA) exercise in 2024, up from 14,500 in 2023.

They submitted a total of 42,500 applications, an increase from 38,000 in 2023.

In 2022, 12,200 pupils sent in 31,800 applications.

The DSA exercise allows all pupils to apply to a maximum of three schools based on an area of talent, which could include sports, performing arts or a specific academic area, before taking the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

The 2024 P6 pupils were born in the Year of the Dragon, with a larger-than-usual cohort size of 41,000, up from 38,100 for the 2023 P6 cohort, which could be a reason for the bigger number of applications.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said the DSA has become more popular, with changes being made over the years to make it more accessible to pupils.

Since the 2018 exercise, MOE has increased the number of DSA places to allow secondary schools to admit up to 20 per cent of their non-integrated programme (IP) Secondary 1 intake via DSA.

Over the years, schools have also expanded their DSA selection processes to recognise diverse strengths, and take into consideration potential, interest, character, resilience and drive, said MOE.