12.6% of P4 pupils who failed 2 or more subjects live in rental flats

SINGAPORE - Of the Primary 4 pupils who failed two or more subjects, an average of 12.6 per cent lived in public rental flats, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing on Monday (July 4).

Rental flat dwellers make up about 4.7 per cent of the total number of households living in Housing Board flats.

Mr Chan, referring to data from the past five years, added in a written parliamentary reply that among the Primary 4 pupils who scored Band 4 in only one subject, 4.5 per cent lived in rental flats.

Primary school students are now graded using Achievement Bands 1 to 4, where Band 4 refers to a score of less than 50 marks.

Mr Louis Ng (Nee Soon GRC) had asked for the number of Primary 4 pupils who had failed one subject, failed two or more subjects and the number who had passed all subjects in each year in the past five years.

He had also asked what percentage of these pupils live in public rental flats and whether the Ministry of Education (MOE) intends to collect this data if it is not available.

Mr Chan said that among Primary 4 pupils who scored better than Band 4 in all four subjects, 0.8 per cent live in public rental flats.

He said: "Where appropriate, schools support students through subject-specific remediation.

"Students can also take subjects at Foundation level at Primary 5 and 6 so that they can focus on building strong fundamentals for secondary school."

Separately, younger children living in public rental flats are less likely to go to pre-school than the national average.

Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli said: "In 2021, the pre-school participation rate of Singaporean children aged three to four years residing in public rental flats was about 80 per cent, slightly lower than the national average of about 88 per cent."

However, the rate for children aged five to six years residing in public rental flats was comparable to the national average of 95 per cent, he added in a written parliamentary reply.

Overall, about nine in 10 Singaporean children aged three to four years were enrolled in pre-schools in 2021, up from around eight in 10 in 2017, he added.

Mr Masagos, responding to questions from Ms Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang GRC) and Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied GRC), said instead of setting specific targets for pre-school participation at each of the lower, middle and higher levels of family income, his ministry's approach is to ensure every child has access to affordable and quality pre-schools.

He said: "We recognise that the early years are important to a child's development, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"For children from lower-income families, the Early Childhood Development Agency facilitates pre-school enrolment from age three onwards through KidStart and the Preschool Outreach programme."

KidStart is a national programme meant to help low-income families build strong foundations for their children.

He added that families under HDB's Public Rental Scheme and MSF's ComCare schemes are automatically eligible for maximum pre-school subsidies.

Mr Masagos also said there are no plans to expand the provision of pre-school education in MOE kindergartens to four-year-olds.

Instead, the MOE has partnered with pre-school operators to pilot a programme to provide affordable pre-school education for children aged two months to six years, he said.