Classes for more than 900 primary and secondary-level pupils and students started last Friday.

With 32 classrooms equipped with projectors and broadband Internet access, a library, a science laboratory and a computer room, the Islamic school will be able to focus on its primary job of preparing pupils for secondary education.

The $16 million eight-storey building is a far cry from the crumbling schoolhouse it used to occupy on Winstedt Road and will mark the first time that the Islamic school has had its own premises.

Pupils and students also get new high-tech gadgets found in mainstream schools such as interactive boards, handheld mathematic game consoles and digital voice recorders. Al-Irsyad director Razak Mohd Lazim believes such methods are the best to engage young learners and develop their academic skills.

The school, which produced last year's top Madrasah pupil in the PSLE, is the only one of six Islamic schools to have such technology.

Funded by donations from the public over the last 5 years or so, all stops were pulled out to ensure its pupils performed to meet a new compulsory requirement by the government.

That states that Madrasah pupils must take the PSLE and match the aggregate score of Malay pupils in the six lowest-performing national schools.

Madrasahs that meet the PSLE benchmark twice in a three-year period can continue to take in Primary One pupils.

For the full story, read Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.