[tesoon]

SINGAPORE: There is good news for primary school students who are unable to progress through mainstream education.

The Education Ministry is making it easier for them to enter the NorthLight School, a vocational training institute.

Students no longer need to fail their PSLE examinations twice to gain entry.

Northlight School started operations this year to cater to students who may not be suited for an academic setting.

Six months on, it has already built up an impressive curriculum that is hands on and leverages on technology.

The students get to learn basic mathematics concepts as well as life skills such as cooking.

Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said: "Northlight is not a school for failures. It's a school with a different method of learning, different environment, different way of helping them discover abilities they never knew they had.

"We've now had a good six months, but already [we're] seeing boys and girls who are quite different from what they were like in January.

"So it's given us the confidence that this is an approach that's working. It can be improved [on], but we should let more students have a chance to go through this approach."

To give students who have fallen out of the mainstream loop a further shot in the arm, the Education Ministry has allowed the school to relax its admission policy.

Currently, the school admits only students who have failed their primary school leaving examination (PSLE) twice.

From January next year, it will also take in those who have failed the exam the first time.

To accommodate them, the school will introduce an additional year of programme, known as the foundation year.

Chua Yen Ching, Principal, NorthLight School, said: "When we receive students now, we notice that some of them do need a little more time for us to work with them, especially on the literacy, language and mathematics skills.

"So what we will do is we will give them the foundation, and after that we can then be more flexible to teach them according to their pace and to have a more flexible programme for them."

The students can then move on to electives like landscaping, healthcare or retail.

The school can take in 360 students next year, 100 of whom will be under the relaxed admission guideline.

But priority will still be given to students who have failed the PSLE examination twice. - CNA/yy

source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...287756/1/.html

[uyen]

This is good for those who taking PSLE ,lesser pressure for parents and the students.

[genzo2106]

This is a good approach as students who may be weak in studying may be good in practical skills