Primary School Enrollment SingaporePrimary School Enrollment Singapore

Enrollment has passed its peak and is easing

Primary enrollment bottomed at 232,650 in 2020, recovered steadily to a recent high of 237,966 in 2024, and has now edged down to 235,488 in 2025 — a fall of 2,478 students, or -1.0%. It is a small move in a single year, but it marks a turning point: after a decade of gradual recovery, the national primary-school population is beginning a slow structural decline rather than a one-off dip.

Why it's falling: smaller birth cohorts

Primary-one intake tracks the number of babies born roughly six to seven years earlier. Singapore's resident total fertility rate slipped to 0.97 in 2023 and a record-low 0.87 by 2025, and those smaller birth cohorts are now reaching school age. That is why P1 intake eased to 37,377 in 2025 from 37,785 in 2024. Because each year's P1 class is smaller than the one before, the effect compounds gradually up the levels over the coming decade.

Reading the level-by-level chart

The 2024-vs-2025 comparison above shows cohorts moving up cleanly: the large Primary 4 group of 2024 (41,040) becomes the Primary 5 bulge of 2025 (41,051), and 2024's Primary 5 cohort (38,089) moves into Primary 6 (38,090). The largest single cohort — the 2019–2020 "baby bump" — is now in the upper primary years and will graduate to secondary school over the next two years, accelerating the decline in total primary numbers thereafter.

Gender split stays stable at ~51/49

Boys make up 51.0% of the 2025 cohort and girls 49.0% — a split that has barely moved in a decade and simply mirrors Singapore's natural birth sex ratio. There is no policy signal here; it is a demographic constant.