School of life: Non-profit helping dropouts launches pilot programme for younger teens who quit school

SINGAPORE – Over the last decade, Starfish Singapore has made a name for itself as a place where school dropouts aged 15 to 21 can get a second chance at education.

More than 400 young people have graduated from its nine-month-long Project Starfish programme, with an average pass rate of over 90 per cent at the N levels. Its 2025 cohort of 59 achieved 48 distinctions. About 40 per cent of each cohort applies for courses at the Institute of Technical Education to further their studies.

Since 2019, the non-profit has seen a rise in younger applicants aged 15. This is the minimum age set by Starfish, as private candidates must be at least 16 years old in the year they sit the N levels. Almost one in three of its applicants in the 2025 intake was 15 years old, says co-founder Siti Yariyati Mohamed, 53.

The non-profit has just launched a new pilot programme for even younger dropouts aged 14 to 15.

Anxiety issues and bullying, along with a growing affinity for gaming and hanging out with online friends, are often the reason these younger students are discouraged from attending school.

The pilot programme, Ad Astra (Latin for “to the stars”), will cater to their particular needs.

Its weekly three-hour lessons will cover mathematics and science, as well as mental health elements such as peer support circles and other activities like art therapy to “destigmatise getting back to the classroom”, Ms Siti says. Those with anxiety, for instance, may find it difficult to even enter such a classroom environment.

The pilot, held at Yishun Central, is free, but the 10 to 15 participants must commit to attend for eight months from March to October. They may enrol in its flagship programme once they graduate.

Starfish Singapore started in 2015 as a ground-up movement. Ms Siti, then a lecturer in a local private educational institution, saw that some of her students taking their O levels faced family issues, financial constraints or mental health struggles, making it difficult for them to cope in school.

She roped in her colleague Ritu Machanda, 60, and research fellow Andrew Schauf, 41, to start an informal tutoring group to help dropouts tackle the N levels, which was not a programme widely available in private schools at the time.

By the end of that year, the trio – who initially called themselves Project Starfish after their programme – were coaching about 10 teens in English, maths and science out of a room in a private educational institution with the help of a handful of volunteers.

They did it for free after finding sponsors for materials and classroom venues, sometimes paying for things out of pocket. Students paid for only their examination fees.

The group soldiered on despite having to change its premises several times over the last decade, as it could not find sponsored rooms.

At one point, the students even studied at McDonald’s. It now has a home at the Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre in Yishun.

In 2019, the team found a benefactor in the Foundation of Rotary Clubs (Singapore), a charity. Its support was scaled back in 2024 so Starfish Singapore could attain long-term financial independence and sustainability. Six years later, Starfish Singapore became a grantee of the Temasek Foundation New Horizon Fund, which was started in 2021 by philanthropic organisation The Majurity Trust.

Ms Ritu and Dr Schauf have since moved overseas and are no longer as involved with the organisation.

The non-profit is staffed by two full-timers and about 50 to 60 volunteers, but it is looking for more, especially those who can spare the time on Mondays and Tuesdays when it conducts classes.

Mr Al Zia Taffazal, 26, considers Starfish Singapore his lifeline after dropping out of Kent Ridge Secondary School in Secondary 4. He had mixed with bad company, picked up smoking and started gaming every day instead of attending classes.

At the time, he was also dealing with family issues and felt like “an outcast” in school. After trying various jobs, he found out about the group from a social worker.

“It was the best decision I made,” Mr Zia says. “Ms Siti is very patient and Mr Andy felt like a friend, so it never felt like being in a classroom. It was my first time experiencing that learning could be fun.”

He learnt that if he focused during the three hours of class, he would not struggle with school work later.

It was a revelation that powered his N levels – where he scored an A for English and Cs for maths and science – and later spurred him to graduate with a diploma in business administration from Kaplan (Singapore), as well as a degree in business management and business law from Murdoch University, also via Kaplan.

Mr Zia manages business development in a cleaning company that his mother founded in 2022.

Ms Siti says what drives her is the students’ stories of accomplishment despite adversity, as well as the selfless volunteers who have rallied to the cause over the last 10 years.

“If you give a chance to someone who really wants it, they can thrive. It has changed the trajectory of their lives and how they see themselves,” she says.