ST Forum: Radical Changes to PSLE Needed

[Vulcann]

Seriously never remember parents last time getting so uptight about the PSLE or exams in general.

 

Maybe we were from a kampong and the common response of these mostly uneducated folks including mine towards exams was "buay tak chek to ker cho gang lo" (If one can't pass an exam, the next recourse is to find a job)

 

But now being a parent myself, though not a very rich nor highly educated one, I am fully aware of the high stakes in our kids' education process nowadays because if they fail any national exams, they may be categorised as failures and end up as society discards sadly.

 

Having said that I reluctantly agree with the authorities that the PSLE is necessary to gauge the ability of kids for their stage of the education. Maybe some tweeking will be nice but strictly not radical changes to the system such as what this parent advocated please.

 

On a side note I did not remember having problems mastering my mother tongue those days.

 

This is probably due to us kampong kids being fans of Jing Yong, Gu Long or Liang Yu Sheng last time

 

From ST Forum:

 

http://www.straitstimes.com/premium/forum-...needed-20120928

 

Radical changes to PSLE needed

 

Published on Sep 28, 2012

 

I JOIN Dr Joshua Kua in calling on the Education Ministry to roll out concrete action plans to resolve unhealthy stress in schools and for parents to form a group to lobby for education reform ("Resolve unhealthy stress in schools"; Sept 14).

 

The fundamental problem lies with the current "one size fits all" education policy, especially for primary schools. Every pupil takes four subjects: English, mother tongue, mathematics and science.

 

How well the pupils do in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) is based on the aggregate of all four subjects. The primary objective seems to be to produce top pupils. It does not take into consideration their strengths and weaknesses.

 

If a child is weak in mother tongue but strong in the other three PSLE subjects, he is "penalised" as his aggregate is affected and thus his choice of secondary school.

 

Mother tongue is the biggest cause of stress for pupils and their parents. Many parents believe mother tongue tuition is necessary and even critical to their children's ability to score good grades in the PSLE.

 

Sadly, many pupils spend a disproportionate amount of time on mother tongue and still fare poorly, not because they are not clever but because of the lack of an innate linguistic aptitude.

 

My wife and I have a daughter, 14, and a son, 16. We would have wanted them to learn Chinese and Malay because they are of mixed parentage. We chose Chinese for their PSLE and, fortunately, they performed well. But it was unnecessarily stressful; the time expended could have been better used for quality family moments.

 

The PSLE need not be scrapped to fix the problem.

 

Instead, change the current calculation of the PSLE aggregate from four subjects to the best three subjects. English must be a compulsory subject in the mix, and a pupil must pass mother tongue. In this way, a pupil who is not as innately talented in languages is not penalised as he can focus on his three stronger subjects.

 

But if he is strong in mother tongue but weak in maths or science, he is also not penalised as his aggregate will be based on English, mother tongue and one other subject.

 

In fact, with this change, parents may even be encouraged to have their children take two mother tongue subjects and not be concerned about the grades.

 

Second, review the difficulty in maths. Currently, many children struggle with the very convoluted problem sums, which even many parents find extremely challenging.

 

Education should not be just about the best, it should be more about the rest.

 

Tan Poh Lam

Edited September 27, 2012 by Vulcann