Man jailed for lying about address in daughter’s school enrolment

[CityFarmer]

The man might think it is trivia, but the consequence is serious i.e. a jail term...

Man jailed for lying about address in daughter’s school enrolment

SINGAPORE — Wanting to enrol his daughter in a prestigious school, a self-employed man lied about where he lived — and ended up being sentenced to two weeks in jail.

The 35-year-old man, whose name has been withheld to protect his daughter’s identity, is appealing against the sentence, which was imposed by district judge Shaiffudin Saruwan today (March 3).

The man had pleaded guilty last month to giving false information to the school’s principal on July 30, 2013.

In the application forms to enrol his daughter, the man had indicated that he lived within a radius of 1km to 2km of the school — knowing that applicants residing in that zone are given priority under Phase 2C of the Primary One registration exercise, should the number of applications exceed the number of vacancies.

He had also produced his identity card with the new address as part of the application.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/man...-enrolment

[brattzz]

why he don't rent the hdb/condo and stay-in over the weekends from P1 to P6?
makes sense right?

[corydorus]

Shouldn't the address be automated kind of tings. u know... our gov bodies pride themselves of paying themselves high with the high service standards, and with modern day internet thing this shouldn't happens. All households, rental, etc should all be mapped. They should know is leased. Seems to me someone screw up and that parent got the short end of the stick because he beats the system and maybe should be rewarded with a warning so that our civil service has some meaningful obvious gap to work with.

Ya jail term ... is kind of sucks since is not like a police form record. Civil servant definition seems too broad. I am also wondering is there any serious warning print on the form that they can face jail term. If not, is another screw up else if is indeed printed clearly (and not fine print), I think the man deserve 2 weeks but no more. Still amazing though and think this issue likely will be a joke in front of my foreigner friends to me ... sigh ! I can explain chewing gum, caning, spitting ... but is Much harder for me to defend this time.

[CityFarmer]

Shouldn't the address be automated kind of tings. u know... our gov bodies pride themselves of paying themselves high with the high service standards, and with modern day internet thing this shouldn't happens. All households, rental, etc should all be mapped. They should know is leased. Seems to me someone screw up and that parent got the short end of the stick because he beats the system and maybe should be rewarded with a warning so that our civil service has some meaningful obvious gap to work with.

Ya jail term ... is kind of sucks since is not like a police form record. Civil servant definition seems too broad. I am also wondering is there any serious warning print on the form that they can face jail term. If not, is another screw up else if is indeed printed clearly (and not fine print), I think the man deserve 2 weeks but no more. Still amazing though and think this issue likely will be a joke in front of my foreigner friends to me ... sigh ! I can explain chewing gum, caning, spitting ... but is Much harder for me to defend this time.

Joke? I chatted with the HR manager of a US company. They don't keep copies of certificates as "proves" for recruitment. Candidates declare and sign on application form, and the company trust them on the declaration.

Once false declaration found and confirmed, the only resolution is dismissal, regardless of performance.

It is a breach of trust, not a technical issue in this case. The parent has engineered it from day 1. I am sure the parent has signed the following declaration.

"the particular stated in this document is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief, and that I have not wilfully suppressed any material fact"

[yeokiwi]

It takes a lot of effort to catch one and a lot of hassles to charge.
If I am the judge, I will also make him an example.

Want to try??? Better don't get caught. Black bean rice waiting.

I think it is time to scrap the gifted programme since we had never ever groomed a Nobel prize winner or close to a nominee.
Gifted kids should be left alone with A LOT OF TIME for them to explore.

[NTL]

Getting into a prestigious school doesn't mean anything. It doesn't guarantee good results for PSLE, it doesn't guarantee getting into gifted program. In fact, alot of prestigious school are depending on "parents' efforts" to produce students with good PSLE grades.

I think rather then "lying to school" about his address, I think he should be punished for "lying to authority" about his address.

[CY09]

His offence is because he lied to a public servant. This is punishable by law and was what he is charged for.

Secondly I do not agree that going to a prestigious school means nothing. Having been a tutor for 6 years, I have noticed the difference in supplementary teaching materials across individual Primary schools. Some schools use rather good supplementary materials which encourages problem saving, while others just use worksheet which seems like what I can create in half an hour. This too is reflected in the results of the students at national exams where certain pri schools, located in HDB estates, always seem to outperform other pri school in the vicinity. My belief is that it boils down to their teaching materials and successful teaching methodology which is passed from 1 dept head to another

[corydorus]

That's interesting. I would think the core teaching material should be standardise. If supplementary materials are critical, shouldn't they be managed across the schools ?

[LionFlyer]

I think in general, MOE does a laudable job in creating level playing field as far as core/basic education.

But there will always be some that wants to do more/above and beyond what is required and is willing to fund it from internal resources. Not every school will have the same sort of resources like say ACS, and should MOE / taxpayers step in to fund it? The so called elite schools and their alumni will always want to be one step ahead of the rest. We can't exactly ask them to stop being elite and spread your wealth around.

[brattzz]

we cannot stop them, but we can spread the knowledge base so that all will have access to it!