I REFER to recent letters on the Ministry of Education's (MOE) approach to homeschoolers.

The Compulsory Education Act, legislated and implemented in 2003, ensures that Singapore children are given a sound education in our national schools.

Nevertheless, exemptions for homeschooling were allowed, but with safeguards in place to protect the interests of the students. A Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) benchmark was set at achievable standards, taking their profiles into account and pegged at the bottom 33rd percentile PSLE aggregate score of all merged-stream pupils who took the PSLE that year. This corresponded to a PSLE score of 191.

This benchmark is necessary to ensure acceptable standards of homeschooling, which can be highly variable as it often depends on a single provider. Parents who chose for their children to opt out of national schools were told upfront and had agreed to the PSLE benchmark set for homeschooled children.

This year, 19 of the 26 homeschoolers who sat for the PSLE met the benchmark. Seven homeschoolers did not and had scores ranging from the bottom 1 per cent to the 29th percentile. The request by parents to lower the benchmark does not serve the interests of these students. Instead, parents should consider enrolling them in our national schools to avail themselves of the full opportunities and resources our schools provide. They should preferably do this as early as possible.

MOE will help facilitate admission to Secondary 1 for homeschoolers who have met the benchmark. Those who wish to attend a national primary school to repeat the PSLE next year can also seek MOE's help for admission to Primary 6 or lower.

Tan Teck Ann
Head, Compulsory Education
Ministry of Education

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 20 Dec, 2008.