From next year, all primary schools will reserve at least 40 places for children with no school connections, in Phases 2B and 2C of the Primary 1 registration exercise.

Balloting results online indicated that six schools had fewer than 40 vacancies when Phase 2B began this year: Ai Tong School, CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, Fairfield Methodist School (Primary), Henry Park Primary School, Nan Hua Primary School and Red Swastika School.

The registration exercise involved 190 schools, with an estimated total of more than 38,000 places. If the six schools above had reserved the minimum of 40 places this year, they would have added about 110 vacancies, or about 0.3 per cent of the vacancies islandwide.

While the coming change in primary school admissions is a step in the right direction, I am unsure if it will have the intended impact in addressing the concerns raised during the Our Singapore Conversation. More should be done to fix the Pri 1 registration system.