Ministry: School policy strengthened to optimize admissions fairly

Education Ministry says its public school admission policy for 2020 is designed to optimize student admissions more fairly and filter out applications with inaccurate information.

A circular by the State Education Minister Fathimath Naseer issued to schools states that permanent residents of registered residents of Male’ city will be prioritized in allocating slots in schools starting from next year.

The circular also stated that slots will be awarded based location of applicants who are registered in Male and whether they are located in close proximity with the school applied to. The next priority will be on the siblings of students living in the area. The children of teachers working in the school, as well as children placed under the custody of the teachers working at schools, will be prioritized next.

I don’t think this is the best way to go about it tbh. Male’ ga ethah ahareh ulhefa thibi meehunge dharin ge haggu koba? https://t.co/NnoefjpF8S

— BlurrEhNu (@ShafaRameez) October 8, 2019

This new policy has been criticized by parents and some members of the public as well to which the Ministry has responded by stating the allocation policy was refined after taking into account the highest number of admissions into schools and focusing that number for students living in the area that the school is located (Catchment Area). The Ministry then stated that this would allow more students from these catchment areas to be admitted into schools.

The number of applications received from the catchment areas for Grade 1 of Iskandar School and Jamaluddin School was higher than the number of students that can be admitted into the school, according to the Ministry.

This is contrary to article 17 and 20 of the constitution and it will amount to discrimination. https://t.co/isIXuaKf6S

— Ali Hussain (@AleeVoice) October 8, 2019

“Grade 1 of Iskandar School has slots for only 90 students despite more than 288 students being located in the catchment area. The same goes for Jamaluddin School which can admit 120 students but has 396 students in the catchment area.” A statement by the Ministry read.

The Ministry also stated that some applications with untrue information that a student was residing in the catchment area were submitted and thus resulted in the chances for those students who were actually residing in the area narrowing. The Ministry stated letters from around 50 or 40 students were submitted as registered under the names of some of the residences in the catchment areas of the previously mentioned two schools, however, after an inquiry, it was found that the numbers were in fact, not accurate.