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SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) will review initiatives aimed at getting students to stay in school. It said more will be done to help the schools keep their drop-out rate low.
The ministry's target is to keep the drop-out rate in both primary and secondary schools at 1.5 per cent in 2010. It achieved that target last year and the figure was maintained this year.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Masagos Zulkifli said it is impossible to have an attrition rate of zero per cent.
About three years ago, the drop-out rate was about four to five per cent. It went down to three per cent and then to 1.5 per cent last year.
He said: "If you look at the 1.5 per cent, it is an absolutely small number. In many countries where I have visited, when we tell them our attrition rate is 1.5 per cent, they almost always fall off their chair, because what to them is manageable is always around five to seven per cent, which is what they're going towards and find hard to achieve."
Even so, the ministry is not giving up on those who have dropped out. But for now, the focus is to enhance the initiatives aimed at keeping the drop-out rate low.
Mr Masagos said: "We want to ensure that the programmes that we run in these schools do not get routinised, (and) students do not feel that they are somewhat disadvantaged. We will look at and review the programmes over time, get feedback from the ground.
"If we need to increase the funding, we will. If we need to increase the number of programmes, we will."
One such item is the Time-out programme which targets students that have poor school attendance. Some 80 schools have applied for up to S$12,000 worth of funds each to start the programme.
Telok Kurau Secondary School is one them. Five of the six students involved in the programme have been coming to school regularly. Before they were put on the programme, they were habitual absentees, sometimes staying away from school for months at a stretch.
The school also started its very own initiative, known as SWISS or School Within a School System, last year. Normal technical students are able to take up courses in hairstyling and beauty, so as to keep them engaged in school.
Mohd Taufiq Abdul Rahman, a student, said: "During Sec one and two, I was not interested in school and was always late coming to school. So after this programme was introduced to me, I started to like coming to school. Sometimes after school I will stay back in school and do my work too, so this place is like a home already."
In fact, teachers said none of the 140 students involved have dropped out from school so far. The school said it intends to expand both the Time-out and SWISS programme next year. - CNA/vm
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