SINGAPORE, Nov 13 — A 42-year-old woman was sentenced to one week in jail today for falsely declaring her address so that her daughter could enrol in a popular primary school, according to Channel News Asia (CNA).
The woman had pleaded guilty in September to providing false information to public servants and misreporting her change of address.
The prosecution had sought a fine, but District Judge Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz ruled that a custodial sentence was warranted due to the deliberate and selfish nature of her deception.
CNA reported that the woman, who cannot be named due to a gag order protecting her daughter’s identity, lived primarily with her partner and child at another address while leasing out her Housing and Development Board flat.
During the 2023 Primary 1 registration exercise, she used the leased flat’s address to qualify for priority admission under the one-kilometre rule.
When school administrators discovered inconsistencies, the woman continued to mislead staff, including instructing tenants to conceal her absence and misreporting her address to registration officers.
She repeatedly lied to ensure her daughter remained enrolled at the school.
In delivering the sentence, the judge emphasised that offences of this nature undermine the integrity of Singapore’s school admissions system and confer an undeserved advantage, CNA reported.
The court noted that the woman’s actions imposed administrative burdens on the school and risked creating cynicism among law-abiding parents.
“The offender’s falsehoods were calculated to entrench the false narrative she had created,” the judge said.
CNA noted that the woman, unrepresented in court, begged for a fine instead of jail, citing her daughter’s medical needs and her own financial constraints.
She later indicated her intention to appeal to the High Court.
The judge also pointed out that while parents naturally seek the best opportunities for their children, they must act with honesty and integrity, as children learn from both words and example.
According to CNA, more parents have been caught providing false addresses in recent years to secure spots in popular schools, with the Ministry of Education investigating an average of nine cases annually from 2020 to 2024, compared with one per year between 2008 and 2018.