Special Assistance Plan

The Special Assistance Plan (SAP) is a programme in Singapore which caters to students which excel in their mother tongues as well as English, and only available to selected secondary schools. This means many school subjects will be taught in their mother tongue in conjunction with English. Currently, SAP schools only cater to those with the Mandarin mother tongue, although future SAP schools for other mother tongues may be established in the future.

A student's entry to SAP secondary schools from Primary 6 is decided based on his or her results in the Primary Six Leaving Examination. An aggregate score of 250 or more must be achieved, and an A for the mother tongue and an A* (>91) must be achieved for English.

The philosophy for this programme probably comes from the Singapore government's attempts to create a highly bilingual society under the idea to master English as the first language for commercial competence, and master the mother tongues for their cultural heritage. The SAP programme would therefore reward those who excel in this category. At times this programme is criticised as elitist.