Mom in Singapore Denied Permission to Homeschool

A mom whom I've been helping to get through all the submissions to the government calls me up to tell me that she was not granted permission to take her 7 yr old out of primary 1.

She tells me her child is not coping well at school. The pace is too fast and the child's classmates make fun of her for not being able to keep up. These make the child very discouraged. (I think many Singaporeans parents can associate with this.)

This mother is concerned enough about her child's future to want to take over educating her child at her child's pace. She told me she doesn't want to wait and see her child's future get ruined.

She says that the officers at MOE are not satisfied that her reasons are justified. They feel that she ought to give her child more time to adapt. And they are requesting that she produce a letter from the school to say the child can't cope and that the mother herself prove more sufficiently that she is committed to her child's education.

The mother is at her wit's end because she feels she has done all she could to prove to the MOE that she IS fully aware of the implications and responsibilities of taking her child out of school but the MOE is not convinced.

Some thoughts and questions:

1) What rights does a parent actually have over the well being, welfare, education of his/her child in Singapore? If you think you are doing the best for your child but the State disagrees with you, who gets the right over the child?

2) I'm speculating that more Singaporean parents are not happy with how their children are struggling in the Singapore public school system and are not coping well. More are asking to take their children out of school.

I suspect also that there are parents who after being granted permission to homeschool, realize after a while that they were not able to successfully homeschool and request to put their child back in the system.

Hence MOE is becoming more stringent about granting permission for exemption. 

3) This mother said that the teacher wasn't very willing to help to write the letter, saying she has to go through the Principal and all that. I told the mom to maybe wait until it's after the exams and the report books are in, when the teachers are not so stressed and then ask again for help.

Any thoughts or advice? Post here or on the Facebook discussions here.

TIA (on behlaf of this mom as well.)