If you are a parent with a child who will be in Primary One next year, you would have registered/are registering with a school of your choice this time of the year. To those who are not parents of school-going children, or who do not live in Singapore, you may wonder what's the big deal. Shouldn't P1 registration be just a process of submitting some forms, and shouldn't places be readily available for your child at a school near you?
It should be and was like this many decades ago, but the truth is, times have changed, and this isn't so anymore.
You see, Singapore may be small, but where education is concerned, we are no shepherd boy, given that our nation constantly boasts of students who beat their global counterparts hands-down in exams, quizzes, and all manners of academic contests. We may not survive Fear Factor, or stand a chance in Survivor, World Cup or Commonwealth Games, but we rule the mind contests. We are a fine city with fine minds when it comes to exams, and a tiny island nation whose maths textbooks have been used by leading first world nations elsewhere. Why, some even make a thriving trade out of selling exam papers with model answers from the top schools in Singapore, and it's no secret that many education & enrichment businesses exist in Singapore only because of the education focus of many parents.
Since school benchmarking started, and schools started competing feverishly to be the best and for the best students, many "discerning" Singaporeans have made it their top priority to have their children attend the best schools. Headstart, advantage, whatever you call it, that's the mentality that's here to stay. As such, parents have no qualms about relocating near to the school of their choice, or finding some ways to be associated with the school of their choice so as to secure a higher chance of getting a place for their kids.
This year, the competition for P1 places in 2007 is even hotter than preceding years because of a baby boom in year 2000. Besides being a millenium year, that year happened to be the year of the Dragon on the Chinese zodiac, and many Chinese consider it auspicious to have babies born with this zodiac sign. So these boom kids are now due for P1 registration, and many parents, I am sure, are nervous about it.
I am one of those parents who have registered their kids for P1 next year. The school which we applied for happens to be a top school in this part of Singapore. I applied for this school because it's the nearest to where we live. 10 minutes is all it takes to walk from home to school. Furthermore, it's a Christian mission school, and as believers, we want our children to study in an environment where God is respected, honoured and feared. Whether it's a top school or not is irrelevant.
This time last year, we prayed about enrolling our daughter for this school. We thought about joining this school as parent volunteers, and we prayed that if God has plans for our daughter to be in this school, then let us serve as parent volunteers. Parent volunteers who meet the minimum number of hours in services rendered qualify to register their child under Phase 2B of the P1 registration scheme, which is the 3rd of 5 phases, in descending priority. When we were selected for the parent volunteer scheme, we were overjoyed. This itself was already a blessing.
You see, even at that stage, there was an overwhelming response from parents wanting to be volunteers and the school had to turn down many such requests. As parent volunteers, we realized that clocking the 40 hours by end-June this year is challenging as there were not many projects to go around, and since both my wife and I are working full-time, committing to regular service (such as story reading, traffic control) during school hours is not quite feasible. Late last year, the school contacted me about an IT project. It turned out to be another blessing as no other persons were able to take on this project. Although I was initially skeptical about whether I can deliver the project as it is not my forte, the school persuaded me to take it on. Well, I did and by the time I delivered the system to the school in April this year, more than 40 hours have been clocked. What's more, I was able to work on this system any time to my convenience and in the comfort of my home!
When I registered last week, I realized that probably less than half the number of parent volunteers were able to meet the minimum service hours. Nonetheless, there were still more applications than places available under this phase. On the first day of Phase 2B registration, several popular schools reported such overwhelming response that implies balloting is required. When my in-laws asked us, we simply replied that we believe a place will be provided for us. In the days that followed, we received news that our application has been successful. We thank God once again for answering our prayers as well as all His provisions & arrangements along the way. Without His favour, all this would not have been impossible.
May God bless you, readers.
Thomas
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