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Yee Jenn Jong, JJ (余振忠)
"Education was the main topic discussed. One person spoke at length about how he felt PSLE was an unnecessary burden and source of stress, and wanted to know if it could be done away with.
The MP’s reply was that when MOE asked parents whether they wanted to scrap PSLE, the majority still said ‘no’, in spite of all the complaints about this exam."
I will focus on just this part of the TOC article.
It might be true that right now, the majority still wants the PSLE or some form of major streaming exercise at age 12. This is because this is the only way we have known the education system for the past 4-5 decades. Having spoken to many people on this issue myself, I find the 'minority' who do not want streaming is not small either. The problem now is that there is absolutely no way for anyone to opt out of the PSLE even if he/she does not care if the child does not go to the so-called 'top' secondary schools (exception is to get your child into an international school, which requires permission from MOE and is very costly).
Hence, I have been calling for pilot schools with through-train from primary to secondary so that this option can be available. Perhaps the 'minority' will not be so minority after several years of piloting if it can be shown that we can produce good students from such schools even if we exclude top schools from this exercise. If we are serious about every school being a good school and about different pathways to success, we should give this issue more serious thoughts. At the very minimum, I believe MOE should conduct a serious study on the demand for such schools and publish the findings.
I would have put my children through such schools, even knowing they may become ineligible to enter 'top' secondary schools without a PSLE score.
Has the PAP lost faith in itself?
By Elaine Ee Recently I attended a dialogue session with a Member of Parliament as part of a constituency event. It was lively, with important issues raised and animated participation from the audi...
theonlinecitizen.com
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