Students may seek MOE's approval through the school to offer a Non-Tamil Indian Language (NTIL e.g. Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu of Hindi). Currently, SOTA offers Hindi in the curriculum. For students who have obtained approval at primary level are not required to reapply. They must continue to offer the approved NTIL at secondary or pre-tertiary levels. NTIL students (except for Hindi) are also required to attend lessons with NTIL community groups and sit for examinations set by the Board for the Teaching and Testing of South Asian Languages (BTTSAL).
Students whose Mother Tongue is an Asian/Foreign Language can seek approval from MOE through the school to offer an Asian/Foreign Language as MTL-in-lieu. Students granted approval at the primary level must continue learning the language at secondary and pre-tertiary levels. Upon admission to Year 1 in SOTA, a new application will be submitted to MOE through the school so as to be on the MOELC waiting list. Students will need to arrange for private study and provide evidence to the school that they are receiving regular instruction from a private centre or tutor. For French, German and Japanese, students may only be admitted to MOE Language Centre (MOELC) subject to availability of vacancies.
These MOE-approved subjects will be considered as a MTL subject, and assessment grades will be taken as part of the promotion criteria from Year 1 to 4.
To fulfil the MTL requirement for admission to the local autonomous universities, students offering NTIL or Asian/Foreign Language MTL-in-lieu are required to sit for the GCE 'O' and 'A' level examinations in Year 4 and 5 respectively, and to attain a minimum 'S" grade in the GCE 'A' level H1 Mother Tongue Examinations.
In Year 5, these students may offer Spanish B (online course) or Language Ab Initio (Chinese, Spanish-online course or French-online course) in preparation for the IBDP.
Read about SOTA’s Mother Tongue Language Programme.