08 July 2019
Making donations to secure places for children in Singapore schools is forbidden today, though it did occur in the past.
Today, school admissions are conducted centrally by the Ministry of Education, which does not allow schools to solicit or accept donations from parents to secure places for admission.
An MOE spokesperson said that the schools admissions framework aims to provide students with school places according to a set of transparent criteria.
Singapore’s autonomous universities have also said that family ties and donations do not have any bearing on student admissions.
In response to queries, the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan (SHHK) said its affiliated schools all have long histories.
“So it is possible that such practices (of donations for places) could have occurred in the past when school admission was decided purely by the school’s management,” the association said.