Is PSLE so important?

[ooioo]

janet_lee88:

Daddy

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/moe-will-not-publish-names-those-who-top-exams-20121120

[quote]MOE no longer publishing top-scorers' names

Means what?
PSLE will be less stressful?
:siam:

*To me, it means those school(s) which produced students with stellar results will not have parents swarming there next year.



*Enrichment centers can no longer publish half page ads with the top students.

We parents will be proud of the scores our kids achieve.[/quote]
Totally agree that this will lessen pressure on P1 registration. And tuition centres actions in the past will finally be over.

But unless you can totally hide every President Scholar's past, background of MPs, Ministers and PM, everyone eventually will know.

[janet88]

ooioo:

NOT announcing and giving recognition to top students and their school, IMHO only creates another set of unforeseen problems; will the mass average students be more or less motivated to study PSLE? Will students become more or less discipline? Will schools and teachers work more or less to push students for better results?


Good schools which IMHO more \"professional\" and experience will have least impact, it is all the average schools, which IMHO will become more \"relax\", as no one knows who is where, or just become the masses, and standards will drop.

IMHO, \"every school is a good school\", is just an impossible dream, a utopia, same like saying that everyone will have equal rights and equal wealth

I see your point. Believe HSK knows every school is not the same. But with majority of parents swarming to the school which produces top student, which does seem unhealthy, he decided to do away with naming top student.

Schools and their teachers should focus on teaching, not to do so for the sake of glory. We have different views of this new decision of not naming. Lots of pros and cons regarding this.

[janet88]

President scholars, MPs, PM, ministers and other big shots…we know they are highly intelligent and from which schools. But starting from now if there is no more naming of top students, we the humble citizens will not know which schools produced ministers. Why not?


Less popular schools will work harder to help groom their students.

[Louis]

ooioo:

NOT announcing and giving recognition to top students and their school, IMHO only creates another set of unforeseen problems; will the mass average students be more or less motivated to study PSLE? Will students become more or less discipline? Will schools and teachers work more or less to push students for better results?


Good schools which IMHO more \"professional\" and experience will have least impact, it is all the average schools, which IMHO will become more \"relax\", as no one knows who is where, or just become the masses, and standards will drop.

IMHO, \"every school is a good school\", is just an impossible dream, a utopia, same like saying that everyone will have equal rights and equal wealth

On the contrary, I do not think there is impact on the average students. Publishing top students motivates the good students to strive to be appear on the news. Removing this will not affect the average students.
Anyway, Secondary school S1 posting is based on T Score, so the competition is still on.
To make every school a good school, good principals shall be posted to underperforming secondary or primary schools.

However, I am supportive of the move not to annouce top students. It gives a clear message that success in PSLE does not mean success in life, so there need not be national fan-fare about it (except celebration with family, which is more important). How many successful entrepreneurs, or politicians are top PSLE scorers which is conducted at a young age.

[ooioo]

janet_lee88:

ooioo:

NOT announcing and giving recognition to top students and their school, IMHO only creates another set of unforeseen problems; will the mass average students be more or less motivated to study PSLE? Will students become more or less discipline? Will schools and teachers work more or less to push students for better results?


Good schools which IMHO more \"professional\" and experience will have least impact, it is all the average schools, which IMHO will become more \"relax\", as no one knows who is where, or just become the masses, and standards will drop.

IMHO, \"every school is a good school\", is just an impossible dream, a utopia, same like saying that everyone will have equal rights and equal wealth

I see your point. Believe HSK knows every school is not the same. But with majority of parents swarming to the school which produces top student, which does seem unhealthy, he decided to do away with naming top student.

Schools and their teachers should focus on teaching, not to do so for the sake of glory. We have different views of this new decision of not naming. Lots of pros and cons regarding this.

The current Education Ecosystem is too academic focus. Minister HSK wants to SHIFT focus to holistic, civic and character building.

I totally agree schools and students FAILS horribly in these areas, but IMHO, think we should proceed with 2 prong approach instead of changing focus and might destroy decades of academic excellence, and might not even able to achieve the other side.

Instead of 一石二鸟 become 赔了夫人又折兵， 咳......

[janet88]

Down the road, does the potential employer care whether interviewee ever scored 4A*s ? Some ministers may not even be top PSLE scorers, but through sheer hard work, they did well to become what they are today.


It is a wise move not to name top scorers. PSLE is needed and is here to stay. Kids who did not do well will feel inferior when there is so much fanfare given to top student like what Louis mentioned. We should be sensitive to the feelings of those kids.

[julialai]

Will this national move snowball into a situation on this Thursday where the top-scorers in the respective schools are also not announced? So principal just gives a general speech on school cohort’s overall performance and then, result slips are released?


My DS’s school just celebrated with an award ceremony where top scorers from each class per level are recognised and given awards by VIP. Also those who did well in CCA and competitions. So in future, these ceremonies may also be scraped?

[Adetan]

马炎庆建议教育部将学生平日的学校成绩，也列入小六会考的评分范围内。


淡滨尼集选区议员马炎庆昨日出席华助会活动，探讨“成绩重要，还是学会做人重要”。

针对近日引起热烈讨论的小六离校会考（PSLE）课题，马炎庆认为目前小六会考制度，因为是一试定终身的，因此风险稍微高了一点。

马炎庆说：“这表示，如果学生在应考时不在最佳状态，而没有完全发挥潜力，便会造成‘一失足成千古恨’的状况。”

因此，他认为或许教育部应该把学生在学校的课业表现，也列入升学的考虑范围内，不只是单单依靠小六会考成绩。

[Rational_Parent]

janet_lee88:

Schools and their teachers should focus on teaching, not to do so for the sake of glory. We have different views of this new decision of not naming. Lots of pros and cons regarding this.

But most people are highlighting the cons here.

In all honesty, I do not think top PLSE students of the past were in favour of their names and/or pictures being published. I would think it was their schools who had initiated the interviews etc.

But would your perspective change if the government allows only the top 10 T-scores to be published, no names and no schools? I feel this is a better option as it would have provided some kind of yardstick for interested parties (i.e. schools, students, parents, etc) to know whether their approaches, efforts and costs invested in their PLSE pursuit had been worthwhile and whether improvement and/or adjustment is needed. It may not be important to know how others have performed but it should be useful to know how your DC had performed, is it not?

I know of schools that present charts and tables during Principal talks, award presentations, etc to show how well their respective schools had performed in PSLE relative to the national standard in all subjects and T-scores, and I see this as a good exercise for schools to strategise and work on their weaknesses and for parents to determine if they want their kids in lower primary to remain in their respective schools. I wonder if schools will continue to receive PLSE statistics.

I don't know about you but keeping totally quiet on PLSE performance is akin to Chinese New year without firecrackers; there is not much to like and yet not much to dislike at the same time. But I really miss those firecrackers.

[janet88]

I think it’s perfectly ok for schools internally to give recognition to their top students.


If the govt indicates top scores without naming students or schools, next batch of PSLE students would have some idea and benchmark. I have not seen fire crackers before. Some fanfare in schools 2moro (THE BIG DAY) will give the students happiness and pride before they leave their primary schools.