Taking leave, booking taxis: Parents scramble to get children to PSLE amid train disruption

SINGAPORE: Amid the ongoing train disruption, parents of Primary 6 students made special arrangements to ensure their children arrived on time for the first day of written papers for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).
CNA spoke to parents at Fairfield Methodist School (Primary), located in Dover, and Nan Hua Primary School, which is located in Clementi, on Thursday (Sep 26) afternoon. 
Both schools are located near the stations affected by the MRT disruption, which stretched from Buona Vista to Jurong East. 
PSLE candidates sat for their English language papers 1 and 2 on Thursday. Paper 1 started at 8.15am while the second paper started at 10.30am.
Of the 41,000 candidates who sat for the papers on Thursday, five were late due to the train disruption, said the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB). 
All five arrived before the end of the paper and were given time to settle down before they sat for the full duration of the exam.
Of the five candidates, one sat for the papers in a different examination centre.
Candidates should contact their schools if they are affected by the train disruption and SEAB will work with the schools to support them, said the board. 
When CNA arrived at Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) at about 12.20pm, a dozen parents were seen waiting outside for the Primary 6 students. 
Ms Rashida Begum, whose son is sitting for the PSLE this year, said she applied for urgent leave from work to send her child to school when she saw the news about the train disruption last night.
“We never expected the major breakdown because we were prepared for our kid to go to school himself and thought the breakdown would get sorted overnight but it didn’t,” she said.
“We stay at Queenstown and so for him to travel to school, he would have had to change trains and would not be able to arrive on time, so I took leave and dropped him off this morning.”
She added that her husband has taken leave for Friday to send their son to school, just in case the train disruption extended to its third day.  
“We are also reaching out to our family members to see if anyone can help us out if the train disruptions stretch till next week, but hopefully that doesn’t happen.”
Mr Terence Png, whose daughter is also sitting for the PSLE this year, said he made an advanced booking for a taxi last night.
“When we found out that the trains weren’t going to run today, immediately, we thought of an alternative, which is to book a taxi or Grab way ahead of time to ensure that we had a ride in the morning,” he said.
The ride from their home in Bukit Batok to the school cost S$30 (US$23), he added.
“It is quite unfortunate that it happened on the eve of PSLE first paper but it can’t be helped,” he said.
“My daughter wasn’t really affected because we got it covered so as not to stress her out.” 
Parents at Fairfield Methodist also said the school’s Primary 1 and 2 students were on home-based learning on Thursday, which could have helped ease the traffic situation this morning. 
Mr Lucas Low, whose son is sitting for the PSLE this year, said he was not too concerned about the train disruption as he usually drives his child to school. They left their home at their usual time and traffic was normal. 
Similar examples of alternative arrangements were taken by parents at Nan Hua Primary School, located in Clementi.
Mr Lee, who was waiting to pick up his son after his PSLE paper, said he lives on the North-South line and would have had to change trains at Jurong East.
“Once I knew the (East-West) Line was not working and that it was not going to be fixed overnight, we decided to book a taxi,” said the 40-year-old, who only gave his surname.  
He said he made a booking for 6.30am and his son arrived at school about half an hour later. 
This arrangement meant he had to pay a higher-than-usual taxi fare of about S$30.
Like Ms Begum, Mr Yap also took urgent leave from work for the next two days to drive his son to school. 
He decided to apply for leave from work for both days as there was “no clarity” on when train service would resume. 
Mr Yap, who is in his 40s and works in the education sector, told CNA that he lives in Choa Chu Kang and would have to alight at Jurong East to get to the school. 
Although bridging services were available, they would have to join long queues for the buses, he said. “As parents we want to avoid all of these, especially on days like these.”