Schools, stop the 'kiasu' practice of using DSA to 'chope' bright kids, by Jun Na&Jie Ning

Link: Schools, stop the 'kiasu' practice of using DSA to 'chope' bright kids

Summary: Direct School Admission Scheme (DSA) was introduced in 2004, where students with talents in sports and arts can enter 'top' schools that specailise in these areas. However, in recent years, more 'kiasu' parents use DSA to secure a place for their child in these IP schools even though their child might already be smart enough to get a high PSLE score to enter the school. This reduces the amount of spaces left for others who might not be smart enough but have talents in other areas which defeats the purpose of DSA. Thus, DSA should not be an avenue for parents to 'chope' a place for bright students first.

Opinion: In my opinion, I agree with the author of this article because DSA is meant for not so bright students but with talents in sports and arts can enter schools that specializes in these areas and therefore, can have more exposure and opportunities for them to excel in their talents. This allows students to be able to benefit better from these schools as they have better opportunities to groom themselves according to their talents and thus, wouldn't go to waste. Imagine if these students did not have a chance to enter these schools and went to a neighborhood school instead as their results were not high enough, they wouldn't be able to groom themselves as well as those in these specialized schools and wouldn't be able to discover and unleash their talents hiding in them. Also, MOE should re-look at the DSA scheme and not put results as the basis to admit students in their school through DSA. After all, these students are entering due to their talents in their talent in sports and arts.

No comments: