This year, my son entered secondary school and was looking forward to joining the IT club as his co-curricular activity (CCA).

He has always had a strong interest in this area, and was in the IT club in primary school too.

Unfortunately, his school limits the number of participants for each CCA, and selects only the best - those who passed an assessment entry test in the case of the IT club - among all the students who showed interest.

The rest are then sent to uniform groups to bulk up the number of participants, regardless of whether the student has any interest in the CCA or not.

Why are students forced to take up CCAs that they have absolutely no interest in? How is this supposed to help them develop holistically?

I have appealed to the school for a change of CCA but the reply was that he did not pass the assessment entry test and was, thus, not selected.

It appears that children now need to pass tests even for their CCAs.

What happened to developing interests and competencies?

Also, why is the school selecting only students who can represent it at competitions and win prizes?

According to the Ministry of Education, that is not the point of CCAs.

It seems this problem is not confined to my son's school, and is an issue in many other schools too.

Goh Lay Sung