Deadline for poly foundation programme responses extended after students report login issues

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) on Wednesday (Jan 24) said it will extend by one working day the deadline for students to accept, reject or submit an appeal over their polytechnic foundation programme (PFP) posting results, after many were unable to access the portal on release day. 

This is a one-year programme to better prepare polytechnic-bound Normal (Academic) students for entry into the relevant polytechnic diploma courses.

Results for the programme postings were released at 2pm on Tuesday, but many students reported they were unable to access the PFP admissions exercise portal. 

A thread posted on the Reddit community r/SGExams showed several comments from those who could not access their results.

“I don’t want to be waiting anxiously for my results while the ‘504 Gateway Timeout’ (error) is adding salt to the wound,” wrote the original poster, who goes by the username yeet123moi.

“It’s been an hour I still can’t get it,” one commenter said.

Another guessed that “everyone is logging in so the website is crashing”.

Others suggested that they should look at the previous year’s cut-off points to determine their chances of getting into their preferred course.

“Why can’t they just send us an auto-generated email about our posting results,” one commenter said.

In response to CNA’s query, an MOE spokesperson said students were unable to access the portal due to technical issues.

“While the administrative team was working to bring the portal back up, all students were informed of the outcome of their PFP applications via email by 8.20pm on Jan 23.”

The spokesman added that the portal had resumed normal operations from 9.45pm on the same day, and students were updated via email.

“Students have been informed that the deadline to (a) accept their offer, (b) reject their offer, or (c) submit an appeal on the portal has been extended by one working day from 4pm on Jan 26 to 4pm on Jan 29.

“Students who have submitted their appeals through the portal will be able to check their results on the same portal at 2pm on Feb 2.”