A week’s jail for woman who lied about address to enrol daughter in primary school

SINGAPORE – A woman who lied about her home address to enrol her daughter in a primary school via priority admission was handed a one-week jail sentence on Nov 13.

The 42-year-old pleaded guilty to one charge of giving false information to public servants and another charge of giving false information when reporting her change of address on Sept 24.

She cannot be named due to a gag order to protect her daughter’s identity. The gag order extends to the name of the school and the personnel involved.

District Judge Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz said a jail term was warranted, given the woman’s calculated actions and selfish motives.

“Parents must be under no illusion, that the deliberate subversion of the school admissions framework through deceit will, in certain circumstances, attract penal consequences,” she added.

The judge said subverting the admissions process potentially deprives another eligible child of admission to that school, and such offences “strike at values that lie at the heart of our society”.

“They confer an undeserved advantage, erode public confidence in a system carefully designed to balance competing aspirations, and unfairly disadvantage those who abide by the rules.”

During the 2023 Primary 1 registration exercise, the woman enrolled her daughter in the school via priority admission based on the distance of their home to the school.

To do so, she provided the address of an HDB flat she leased out to six tenants.

In June 2024, she e-mailed the school to request a change to her records, and provided her partner’s address, which was beyond 2km of the school.

She retracted the request when the school told her that it would violate the 30-month stay requirement for pupils who enrolled via priority admission.

When the vice-principal of the school met the woman to verify her address in August 2024, she told her tenants to shutter the flat’s windows from 7am to 11pm.

She also instructed them to lie and say that she and her daughter lived in the unit.

After several futile attempts to verify her address, the school informed the woman that it would transfer her daughter out in October 2024.

The school made a police report the following month.

Judge Sripathy-Shanaz said the mother’s repeated lying was “exceedingly aggravating as it betrays an enduring and entrenched commitment to law-breaking”.

She added that just because there have been few prosecutions for such instances of abuse, it does not mean that they are rare.

Some cases may have been resolved through administrative rather than penal means, the judge said.

The woman’s case is the fourth reported in the past decade involving parents lying to get their children into a primary school.

Previous cases have seen parents handed fines of between $4,000 and $5,000.

The last known case involving a prison sentence was in 2007. The district judge noted at the time that there were aggravating factors in the case.

Besides premeditation, the accused had abused his position of trust as a lawyer, and his conduct had undermined public confidence in the legal profession, the judge said.

The man was sentenced to 11 months’ jail for forging and lying about his residential address in order to get his daughter into a reputable school in Bukit Timah.

In 2018, a woman was fined $5,000 after she gave a false address to enrol her child in a prestigious school during the Primary 1 registration exercise in 2015. Her husband was fined $4,000 for giving a false contact address to a registration officer at a police post.

In another case in 2015, a man was fined $5,000 for lying to a school principal about where he lived to get his daughter admitted to a primary school.

Judge Sripathy-Shanaz noted that there has been an upward trend in such cases.

Data from the Ministry of Education showed investigations into such cases had averaged about one a year from 2008 to 2018, but rose to nine a year from 2020 to 2024.

Judge Sripathy-Shanaz said education holds an exalted place in Singapore.

“The selection of a primary school in Singapore stands as the first and often most defining milestone in a child’s journey through formal education,” she added.

“Competition for places in certain schools, often highly sought after for their perceived academic rigour or developmental opportunities, has become especially keen.”

As such, those who seek to subvert the system should expect consequences, said the judge.

“Such conduct must therefore be met with unequivocal disapproval, for the legitimacy of the admissions process rests on the same values of integrity, honesty and fairness that the education system strives to instil in the very children it is meant to nurture.”

The woman, who was not represented, and the prosecution had both asked for a fine, but Judge Sripathy-Shanaz said a jail term was warranted.

She said the woman’s daughter had gained an unfair advantage, and the school’s resources also had to be used to uncover the truth.

The judge said such actions risk undermining the credibility of the entire system.

“The legitimacy of the admissions framework depends critically on public confidence,” she said.

“That confidence is undermined by the perception that dishonesty in the registration process – being relatively easy to commit yet inherently difficult to detect, as illustrated by the time taken to uncover the falsehood in this case – can confer an unfair advantage on those prepared to deceive.

“If such conduct is not met with adequate sanction, it risks engendering cynicism that honesty and compliance place law-abiding parents at a disadvantage.”

Judge Sripathy-Shanaz said there is a need to deter such offending to safeguard the integrity of the system.

“Parents seeking to gain an unfair advantage in the Primary 1 registration process through the provision of falsified addresses remain a live and legitimate concern,” she said.

In her concluding remarks, the judge said parents must remember that they set an example for their children.

“While many parents naturally seek the best educational opportunities for their children, they must remember that they are their children’s first and most enduring educators,” she said.

“They must therefore act with honesty and integrity in their dealings, ever mindful that their children learn not only from what they are told, but from what they see.

“Integrity begins at home, and the lessons children draw from their parents’ example will endure far beyond the walls of any educational institution.”

The woman has filed an appeal against her sentence.

The Ministry of Education previously said a child may be transferred to another school with vacancies near where he is staying if he is found to have been registered in a school based on false information.

This could include the use of an address solely for registration purposes without residing there, or the 30-month stay requirement not having been fulfilled.

For knowingly giving false information to a public servant, an offender can be jailed for up to two years, fined, or both.

For giving false information when reporting a change of address, an offender can be jailed for up to two years, fined up to $3,000, or both.