Is PSLE really needed in Singapore?

[janet88]

Some happen to stay near good schools. Some shift to stay near good schools. Competition is necessary to motivate our kids to work hard.

I like what Coolkidsrock2 mentioned. I feel that SAP schools are not for every child. His/her character also plays a part in deciding on the school.

[beanbear]

slmkhoo:

I think parents need to answer a few questions for themeslves:
- Is it true that if my child doesn't get into a 'good' sec school, he will almost certainly not get into a 'good' JC and university? (Some parents even use the words 'doomed' and 'dead' to describe not getting into a choice school.)
- Is it true that if my child gets into a 'good' sec school, he will almost certainly get into a 'good' JC and university? (This is the 'escalator theory' of education.)

My personal answer is that it's more the child's own ability, and also his determination to study and learn that determines whether he does well enough to go to university. It is not the school that he goes to which is the main determining factor. My greater concern would be that the competition in the school is at the right level for my child - too great and my child may give up in despair, too little and my child may be too complacent. I don't believe that pushing my weaker child into a 'good' school will make her results better, so in selecting schools, I don't want to consider schools where the competition is stiff. On the other hand, I encouraged my stronger child to aim for the top because I believe that she can hold her own there and will thrive on the competition. I still hope my weaker child will have a shot at university even though she is not in a 'good' school, and in fact, the reduced competition will probably make is easier for her to leran without too much stress. I believe that the escalator theory is one of the main causes of stress in education, along with a very short list of which schools are considered 'good', and parents have to decide if they subscribe to that theory. Please note that I'm not saying that schools don't matter; I'm just saying that getting into a 'good' school doesn't matter that much.

On a practical note, some kind of method to allocate students to secondary schools is needed. If not an exam, is there a better way? By who can pay more? By location? By lottery? With all its faults (which I hope MOE is planning to address to some degree), I think an exam is still the most practical way.

Thank you for pertinent questions which I've highlighted in red. These questions point to a theory of success that some parents are holding to and this whole PSLE debate is getting people to make their assumptions explicit.

I'm really concerned about the bottom half of the bell curve. I suspect many of these children who are within that bottom half of the bell curve really wish PSLE need not be so stressful or the pain be alot lessened and many of them aspire to do well, go poly or jc and then onto university. How do we let them experience success during primary school such that they feel they can \"dare\" to aspire, that they are smart, that they can learn well and that they deserve to go to university if they so choose. If you put yourself in any child's shoes and if they have been scoring 50s - 60s or failling or near failing from P4 or P5 onwards, how do you given them evidence that they can do well. Of course, home environment is important. But seriously, what messages are we sending children if we subject them to experiences of failure or near failure over and over again? I disagree this is the way to teach resilience. This is creating a generation of low-esteem kids. We do not create a school environment where young children feel they can make it. Instead, we scare the hell out of them.

I wish there was a choice given to our children. Those who aspire for IP or Top 20 ranked schools - by all means go fight it out with a super duper difficult PSLE. Let the rest of the \"commoners\" take a more \"normal\" PSLE. If we can have differentiated programmes like IP, SAP, IB, etc, then why can't we have differentiated PSLE for different groups. Why subject the WHOLE cohort to a very high standard of testing if MANY of these have NO aspiration to go IP, SAP, IB etc.

[Coolkidsrock2]

beanbear:

slmkhoo:

I'm really concerned about the bottom half of the bell curve. I suspect many of these children who are within that bottom half of the bell curve really wish PSLE need not be so stressful or the pain be alot lessened and many of them aspire to do well, go poly or jc and then onto university. How do we let them experience success during primary school such that they feel they can \"dare\" to aspire, that they are smart, that they can learn well and that they deserve to go to university if they so choose. If you put yourself in any child's shoes and if they have been scoring 50s - 60s or failling or near failing from P4 or P5 onwards, how do you given them evidence that they can do well. Of course, home environment is important. But seriously, what messages are we sending children if we subject them to experiences of failure or near failure over and over again? I disagree this is the way to teach resilience. This is creating a generation of low-esteem kids. We do not create a school environment where young children feel they can make it. Instead, we scare the hell out of them.

Am not sure if changing the school environment will help these children as the root causes appear to be more family related. My DC are in a school where the social-economic backgrounds of the students are very diverse. At the minimum, I know hardly any parents turn up during parent-teaching meetings for some of the classes. I had interacted with some parents whose children scored below 200 for PSLE. Mindset of the parents are different, the habits and environment are different. An analogy will be like the difference between a child who is brought up by a stay-at-home mum and one brought up by a domestic helper. Not the same.

The issues relating to this group of kids are manifold and the problems will continue in a vicious cycle, possibly worsening with each generation as globalisation creates an increase in inequality within countries. We may not even know where to begin solving the problem and the society and schools can only do so much.

I wish there was a choice given to our children. Those who aspire for IP or Top 20 ranked schools - by all means go fight it out with a super duper difficult PSLE. Let the rest of the \"commoners\" take a more \"normal\" PSLE. If we can have differentiated programmes like IP, SAP, IB, etc, then why can't we have differentiated PSLE for different groups. Why subject the WHOLE cohort to a very high standard of testing if MANY of these have NO aspiration to go IP, SAP, IB etc.

Good idea but think there may likely be more applicants than space and may mean that kids who are rejected may have to sit for another exam to get into the normal schools.

[beanbear]

Without concrete data or statistics, we won’t know. My view of DSA is that it’s really not that effective as a pathway to allow the less academic have a shot to "better" schools. The schools have a very very small quota to work with. I don’t have actual numbers but my guess is it’s a handful - drop in the ocean unless those schools who have identified only DSA route. If you look at the kind of barriers they put up, it’s again discouraging the less academic kids to lose heart and not even bother to try.


I’m sure there will be a sizeable group that will opt for the "tough" PSLE to have a shot at the top schools. But there could really be a sizeable group who want a fair assessment test - sure by all means give it a certain level of challenge - but do we need to subject an entire cohort to exceptionally difficult hurdles just so we can filter out the cream of the crop? To me we are doing injustice to the group who really want to be spared, really for very good reason because they already know their own limitations, they already been through numerous exams at school level to know they are at the bottom, average or below average or a little above average. Our schools test very often. There are exams every term and then there are many bite-sized assessments already done every other month. After going through so many "killer" exams at school, we then subject kids to the "fearful" PSLE, the kids go away with the message that adults in Singapore really love to give exams to children!!

If indeed all schools are mostly good schools and really the highly academic ones are the Top 20, then do we need to waste so much resources & energy to test our kids so that they can then be filtered into the remaining 200+ schools?

[Will_lim]

Thanks for the replies guys.


Correct me if I’m wrong, in most western countries like the US, the students only take SATs at the end of high school and bam! they go to university. So, the kids there are on pretty much the same playing field all the way till they are 18 years old. Whereas in Singapore, students have to take PSLE, "O", "N", and "A" Levels before they finally reach university. It’s like just when you think it’s over, you are up against the next big exam already. It’s an exam-crazy culture.

I actually prefer the US’s education system because firstly, it is much less stressful than our education system. Secondly, it builds better self-esteem because students are not given this message that they are lousier than other students in "better" schools at a young age. I remember when I was young, I would go for inter-school competitions and when I knew I was up against a good school, my morale would already deflate a little bit. Sometimes, I give my kid a Raffles paper to do and he is like "wuh, cannot la…they are too smart for me…" My son like me, had already lost the battle even before we stepped into the battlefield.

Perhaps, this constant streaming is necessary for our country because of our limited resources. After all, we don’t have that many schools like in the US. Over there, they have about 200 plus universities. We only have 3 so far. Therefore, competition is necessary because of the low supply. Sigh.

[alisaken]

slmkhoo:

Will_lim:

Thanks for the replies guys.


Correct me if I'm wrong, in most western countries like the US, the students only take SATs at the end of high school and bam! they go to university. So, the kids there are on pretty much the same playing field all the way till they are 18 years old. Whereas in Singapore, students have to take PSLE, \"O\", \"N\", and \"A\" Levels before they finally reach university. It's like just when you think it's over, you are up against the next big exam already. It's an exam-crazy culture.

I actually prefer the US's education system because firstly, it is much less stressful than our education system. Secondly, it builds better self-esteem because students are not given this message that they are lousier than other students in \"better\" schools at a young age. I remember when I was young, I would go for inter-school competitions and when I knew I was up against a good school, my morale would already deflate a little bit. Sometimes, I give my kid a Raffles paper to do and he is like \"wuh, cannot la...they are too smart for me..\" My son like me, had already lost the battle even before we stepped into the battlefield.

Perhaps, this constant streaming is necessary for our country because of our limited resources. After all, we don't have that many schools like in the US. Over there, they have about 200 plus universities. We only have 3 so far. Therefore, competition is necessary because of the low supply. Sigh.

I don't think this is entirely true. US kids don't go through big public exams in earlier years, but there is some separation of more academic kids from the less academic. This is done more by pull out classes or differentiating the work required. There is also stiff competition for certain schools at all levels, except that it's by where you live, and sometimes entrance tests, only that some parents may not try as hard as Singapore parents. But yes, it's a lot less stressful.

There is a downside to the esteem-building in US schools, though. Kids get used to being praised and getting high grades, so they 'don't know that they don't know', if you know what I mean.

I quite agree with slmkhoo on this issue. US kids also need to struggle and compete with each others to get into good universities. I admit that they don't have many exams like the way it is in Singapore but they are sure stressed enough for their exams.

Moreover, I think they face other problems that are not from the academic side. Instead of studying theories, they will spend time doing other things like playing sports, participating in outdoor activities, joining art clubs. And in such a culture like US, I'm pretty sure that students will strive to win and to feel a sense of accomplishment, or to receive praise from their parents and teachers. And more importantly, these activities are parts of important criteria for good universities. Hence, it is not that they are not having any exams, they are just having different types of playing field.

[janet88]

beanbear:

I'm really concerned about the bottom half of the bell curve. I suspect many of these children who are within that bottom half of the bell curve really wish PSLE need not be so stressful or the pain be alot lessened and many of them aspire to do well, go poly or jc and then onto university.

I wish there was a choice given to our children. Those who aspire for IP or Top 20 ranked schools - by all means go fight it out with a super duper difficult PSLE. Let the rest of the \"commoners\" take a more \"normal\" PSLE. If we can have differentiated programmes like IP, SAP, IB, etc, then why can't we have differentiated PSLE for different groups. Why subject the WHOLE cohort to a very high standard of testing if MANY of these have NO aspiration to go IP, SAP, IB etc.

:goodpost:
If all kids in schools are taught equally and adequately well, I believe they will dare to sit for PSLE. Like you said, fight it out, fair and square.

I quote this line from a friend...'the journey to take PSLE is a treacherous one'.
Students walk into the unknown tunnel at the beginning of P5. They don't know when they will see light, or even get to see it. To make things worst, they enter another tunnel in P6. We are ALL commoners. Just give our kids a normal PSLE. This little red dot doesn't need to offer so many channels like IP, IB etc etc.

[BeContented]

Life is about choices - the choices available & the choices we make.


Just because one does not want/need or cannot attain does not mean others should be deprived of those opportunity.

[vlim]

BeContented:

Life is about choices - the choices available & the choices we make.


Just because one does not want/need or cannot attain does not mean others should be deprived of those opportunity.

Agree.. Kee chiu kee chui!.. :goodpost:

[janet88]

Since these are there, then they are options for those who want to try for them…commoners like myself will do what we can.