First day shock: Republic Polytechnic apologises for 'mistakenly admitting' 16 students
Republic Polytechnic apologises for 'mistakenly admitting' 16 students, nine of whom managed to find places in other schools
They had received their letters of acceptance to Republic Polytechnic (RP), but when the 16 students turned up for the first day of school on April 16, each of them was told that their letters had to be withdrawn because they were mistakenly admitted.
RP has issued an apology to each of the 16 students and said it will refund their enrolment fees.
The school is also helping the students find placements in the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) or one of the other polytechnics.
On Sunday, Lianhe Wanbao reported that one of the students, who gave her name only as Ms Hou, had earlier rejected a place in ITE to enrol in RP's Human Resource Management with Psychology course.
The 18-year-old had scored 28 points for her O levels, with one point deductible due to her co-curricular activities.
She still did not meet the school's maximum cut off of 26 points, and said she was surprised to receive an enrolment letter from RP.
When she arrived in school on April 16, Ms Hou was told to go to the staff office, where she was shocked to be told that her results had not met the school's cut off mark and her place would have to be withdrawn.
Responding to queries from The New Paper, RP's registrar, Mr Shanmugasundar W., apologised for the administrative lapse.
He said: "RP has worked with Ms Hou to secure her a place in ITE.
"She has since matriculated into ITE College West's Higher Nitec in Accounting course. We wish her all the best in her studies."
Mr Shanmugasundar confirmed that there were 15 other students with cases similar to Ms Hou's.
FAIRNESS
He added: "After confirming that these students did not meet the admission criteria for RP's courses as their net aggregate score (ELR2B2) exceeded 26 points, we rescinded their places, out of fairness to other unsuccessful applicants."
As of yesterday, nine of the 16 students had accepted alternative placements.
The rest are either pending acceptance or planning to retake their O-level exams.
Mr Shanmugasundar promised that such mistakes would not happen again.
"We apologise for the inconvenience caused to the students, and we will improve our processes to ensure that similar errors would not recur," he said.
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