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<!-- headline one : start --><TR>Move to overhaul primary education gets govt go-ahead
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>The goal is independent learners who grow up to be caring citizens </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Amelia Tan
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Student reporter Yoo Yi Jie interviews Education Minister Ng Eng Hen during his visit to Greenridge Primary School in Bukit Panjang. Dr Ng yesterday announced that his ministry would accept the recommendations by the Primary Education Review and Implementation Committee. -- ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->LONG-TIME staples of primary school education here, such as examinations in the first two years and afternoon sessions, will soon be history.
Recommendations for change by a panel that reviewed the system here have been given the green light.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css> #related .quote {background-color:#E7F7FF; padding:8px;margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;} #related .quote .headline {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px;font-weight:bold; border-bottom:3px double #007BFF; color:#036; text-transform:uppercase; padding-bottom:5px;} #related .quote .text {font-size:11px;color:#036;padding:5px 0px;} </STYLE>Key recommendations of primary education review
No exams for Primary 1 and 2 but mini tests instead.
More qualitative feedback on strengths and weaknesses and progress in non-academic areas.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Education Minister Ng Eng Hen, who visited Greenridge Primary School yesterday, said the proposals were 'sensible' and would raise the standards of primary education here to a higher level.
The ideas include doing away with exams in Primary 1 and 2, making all government primary schools single session by 2016 and recruiting only graduates as teachers by 2015 (see box).
Dr Ng noted that the committee boiled down the focus of the review to this simple question: 'What is it we want to achieve for our primary school students?'
The answer it came up with was 'that we want to have caring citizens, that we want them to be independent learners and we want them to be confident', he said.
The committee also asked what it would take to get there, and 'made a good point that if you want this, you really need to create a better learning and teaching environment - which means more space and time in schools'.
It is from the need to improve the teaching and learning environment that the recommendation to use qualitative assessment methods came about, he explained.
He added: 'If you give a mark, say 60, what does it mean? It means that somebody who got 59 got less than you and that somebody who got 61 got more than you. It doesn't give the proper feedback... What are you weak in and what are you strong in?'
The Ministry of Education will allocate about $4.8 billion over the next decade to implementing the recommendations.
The money will pay for new programmes, the recruiting and training of additional educators to lower the pupil-to-teacher ratio from the 21:1 now to 16:1 by 2015, the building of new schools and upgrading of existing ones.
The minister did not give a time frame for scrapping exams for Primary 1 and 2 pupils, but said schools will make the move at a pace they find comfortable. Some schools have made a start by replacing semestral exams with, say, mini tests and projects.
The recommendations, the work of an 11-member committee led by Senior Minister of State for Education Grace Fu, have fanned some controversy.
Debates have grown heated in focus-group sessions and in newspaper forums over two points - the doing away with exams at the lower primary levels and the graduates-only policy in the hiring of primary school teachers.
Members of the public asked how understanding could be gauged without exams; they also argued that passion should come before academic qualifications in the hiring of teachers.
Ms Fu explained in January that without exams in the picture, pupils will come to love learning and be less stressed; she also clarified that teachers would be hired based on their suitability for the job and not purely on their paper qualifications.
These issues aside, Dr Ng said challenges such as space constraints in large schools still had to be overcome.
'By and large, we will be able to move towards a single session for a majority of our schools by 2016,' he said. [email protected]
</TR>
<!-- headline one : start --><TR>Move to overhaul primary education gets govt go-ahead
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>The goal is independent learners who grow up to be caring citizens </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Amelia Tan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
Student reporter Yoo Yi Jie interviews Education Minister Ng Eng Hen during his visit to Greenridge Primary School in Bukit Panjang. Dr Ng yesterday announced that his ministry would accept the recommendations by the Primary Education Review and Implementation Committee. -- ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->LONG-TIME staples of primary school education here, such as examinations in the first two years and afternoon sessions, will soon be history.
Recommendations for change by a panel that reviewed the system here have been given the green light.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css> #related .quote {background-color:#E7F7FF; padding:8px;margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;} #related .quote .headline {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px;font-weight:bold; border-bottom:3px double #007BFF; color:#036; text-transform:uppercase; padding-bottom:5px;} #related .quote .text {font-size:11px;color:#036;padding:5px 0px;} </STYLE>Key recommendations of primary education review
No exams for Primary 1 and 2 but mini tests instead.
More qualitative feedback on strengths and weaknesses and progress in non-academic areas.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Education Minister Ng Eng Hen, who visited Greenridge Primary School yesterday, said the proposals were 'sensible' and would raise the standards of primary education here to a higher level.
The ideas include doing away with exams in Primary 1 and 2, making all government primary schools single session by 2016 and recruiting only graduates as teachers by 2015 (see box).
Dr Ng noted that the committee boiled down the focus of the review to this simple question: 'What is it we want to achieve for our primary school students?'
The answer it came up with was 'that we want to have caring citizens, that we want them to be independent learners and we want them to be confident', he said.
The committee also asked what it would take to get there, and 'made a good point that if you want this, you really need to create a better learning and teaching environment - which means more space and time in schools'.
It is from the need to improve the teaching and learning environment that the recommendation to use qualitative assessment methods came about, he explained.
He added: 'If you give a mark, say 60, what does it mean? It means that somebody who got 59 got less than you and that somebody who got 61 got more than you. It doesn't give the proper feedback... What are you weak in and what are you strong in?'
The Ministry of Education will allocate about $4.8 billion over the next decade to implementing the recommendations.
The money will pay for new programmes, the recruiting and training of additional educators to lower the pupil-to-teacher ratio from the 21:1 now to 16:1 by 2015, the building of new schools and upgrading of existing ones.
The minister did not give a time frame for scrapping exams for Primary 1 and 2 pupils, but said schools will make the move at a pace they find comfortable. Some schools have made a start by replacing semestral exams with, say, mini tests and projects.
The recommendations, the work of an 11-member committee led by Senior Minister of State for Education Grace Fu, have fanned some controversy.
Debates have grown heated in focus-group sessions and in newspaper forums over two points - the doing away with exams at the lower primary levels and the graduates-only policy in the hiring of primary school teachers.
Members of the public asked how understanding could be gauged without exams; they also argued that passion should come before academic qualifications in the hiring of teachers.
Ms Fu explained in January that without exams in the picture, pupils will come to love learning and be less stressed; she also clarified that teachers would be hired based on their suitability for the job and not purely on their paper qualifications.
These issues aside, Dr Ng said challenges such as space constraints in large schools still had to be overcome.
'By and large, we will be able to move towards a single session for a majority of our schools by 2016,' he said. [email protected]
