THE first batch of students outside mainstream schools to sit for the Primary School Leaving Examination have done as well as their counterparts elsewhere, with over 90 per cent of them doing well enough to move to the secondary level.

The pupils - who are either schooled at home, in madrasahs or at San Yu Adventist, a private school - were made to sit for the national exams under the Compulsory Education Act. In total, 49,856 Primary 6 pupils from mainstream schools, 321 children from madrasahs, or Islamic religious schools, 26 home-schoolers and three from San Yu took the PSLE.

When compared to mainstream schools, madrasah pupils were on par: 98 per cent did well enough to progress to secondary schools, a notch higher than the 97 per cent for mainstream pupils.But in terms of scores, mainstream students did much better than those in madrasahs.

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