Balloting and Placement Data for 2025 Secondary School Posting Exercise

11 Ms Gho Sze Kee asked the Minister for Education (a) how many students were subject to balloting in the 2025 Secondary 1 Posting Exercise; (b) of this number, how many were unsuccessful and consequently considered for their next choice of school despite having met the cut-off points of their higher-order choice; and (c) since 2021, how many students have been similarly unsuccessful in balloting each year.

The Minister for Education (Mr Desmond Lee): Mr Speaker, the Secondary 1 Posting Exercise operates on merit, with students achieving a better Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) score receiving priority for their preferred schools. Under the Achievement Levels (AL) scoring system, more students will have identical scores. When two or more students have identical scores and are competing for the last available vacancy at a school, the Ministry of Education (MOE) applies tie-breakers in the following order: the student's citizenship status, then the student's ranking of that school in their choices and finally, computerised balloting if needed.

In the 2025 Secondary 1 Posting Exercise, around one in 10 students underwent computerised balloting. This has been stable over the last few years. MOE does not track the number of students who were not successful despite meeting the cut-off point for a school, as this number can vary widely for individual schools each year, depending on students' choice. Instead, MOE tracks the percentage of students who were placed in a school amongst their top six choices. Since 2021, more than eight in 10 students were posted to a school within one of their top three choices, and more than nine in 10 to a school within their six choices.

Mr Speaker: Ms Gho.

Ms Gho Sze Kee (Mountbatten): Mr Speaker, I noted the Senior Minister of State's answer to my earlier Question No 3. I just wanted to be clear. If there is a compression of available places for non-affiliated students because Direct School Admission (DSA) for non-affiliated students do eat into the minimum quota of 20%, as we have just learnt, is this a contributing factor to student who have just met the cut-off point and nevertheless still be balloted out? That is my first question.

The second question: would MOE consider setting up a hard quota for non-affiliated and non-DSA admissions? So, this would ensure a meaningful and predictable number of places that remain available to students applying through the Secondary 1 admissions exercise.

Mr Desmond Lee: Mr Speaker, for the first question, the cut-off point, there are two – one is the historical cut-off point, which is the cut-off point from the last balloting exercise, and then the cut-off point for the current exercise, which is dependent on the number of students applying and their scores, and then you look at the last available student going in, and then you derive that cut-off point. It varies, could be varied by one to two points, depends on each year's exercise.

So, in a way, each school's balloting rate depends ultimately on school choices and students' decisions, and DSA numbers and the kinds of students and numbers of students they admit each year. Having said that, it is linked to the Member's second point, and the Ministry will certainly study all of these suggestions and more.