Ehhh, why didn’t this piece of news come my way earlier? Must have been a pretty quiet announcment. Anyway, according to the ASEAN Scholarships’ website, there will no longer be a second (May) intake from year 2006 onwards (i.e. this year).

Prior to this change, Singapore’s Ministry of Education had setup a dual intake system, where the first intake would be in late December while the second intake would be in May. But I guess the problems related to the second intake had become far too prevalent. For one, second intake students had to catch-up, both academically and co-curricularly, with first intake students (both scholars and Singaporean students).

Personally, I think this is a good move. After all, students coming in for the second intake of the ASEAN Scholarships tend to come in rather clueless of the additional problems they would have to face compared to first-intakers (not the fault of the students themselves, really), and tend to have a tough time getting past the Ministry’s strict end-year (Promotional Examination) test requirements.