Last November, it was only through advertising that Lianhe Zaobao managed to get the name of the top performer in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) - Xie Feng Yu, from Nanyang Primary School, who scored 285 points. The school itself collectively commended 45 of its students who scored above 270 points. There was no mention at all of having produced the top scorer in Singapore.
Ms Tan Chiew Hua, a reporter from Lianhe Zaobbao, wrote, "Having the top scorer should have been an occasion for celebration, so why did it become so secretive and hush-hush?"
Within a fortnight of all our Principals repeating the mantra, "Grades are personal in nature, and announcing them only encourages unhealthy and unnecessary competition," the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) report came out. It published the results in Maths and Science of Grade 4 and Grade 8 students (i.e. Secondary 2) from 50 and 42 countries and/or cities respectively. Singapore ranked first in Primary 4 Maths and Secondary 2 Science, and second in Primary 4 Science and Secondary 2 Maths.
Singapore has achieved sterling results once more, and instead of a celebration, we seem to be somewhat embarrassed. Why has it come to this? As a reporter who has observed the education scene in Singapore for three decades, I hope that parents and educators alike will take pride in our students' performance and not take it for granted.
In 1983, Singapore's Secondary 1 and 2 students took part for the first time in an international assessment - the Second International Science Study (later to become TIMSS with the addition of Maths), administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). 12 years later in 1995, Singapore again participated in TIMSS and came in top in both Maths and Science, followed closely by Korea, Japan and the Czech Republic. In the study that year, data from 500,000 students from 41 countries was collected. American students were found to be trailing in Maths and Science, behind Singapore, the Czech Republic, Japan, Korea, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria and Hungary. China did not take part.
In 1997 after the IEA had published these results, Mr Richard Lee Colvin, an education reporter from the Los Angeles Times, came to Singapore to compare the education systems of Singapore and the US. He wrote in his article, "What everyone in Singapore tells you about education is that it's not merely about learning, or about serving individual students' needs. It's about survival. In order to improve, there has to be sacrifice; nothing is free in Singapore."
Indeed, having our students top the international leagues was the combined effort of the entire nation. But it was the streaming system that had radically transformed our education system.
In the PSLE last year, there were 47,163 candidates. 97.6 per cent of the cohort passed and were therefore able to be promoted to secondary school, and we have long since become used to such exemplary figures. But it is not widely known that 38 years ago, the PSLE results from the 1974 cohort produced only a 59.3 per cent pass rate from its 71,049 students. After six years of education, only 60 per cent of the cohort had managed to secure promotion. This figure startled the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, so much so that in June 1975, he took up the education portfolio himself. After four months in the Ministry of Education, and after gaining a fuller understanding of the severity of the situation, he asked the Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Goh Keng Swee, to find the crux of the problem and propose solutions.
After four years, the "Goh Report" was published in March 1979, and it proposed the "streaming of children according to their ability to absorb instruction." Said Dr Goh, "One system cannot do justice to all children. The system recognises that not everyone is academically inclined. It tries to seek ways of giving half a loaf when a whole loaf would choke." However, the idea of streaming was met with strong objections by members of the society at large.
"Educationists and others who oppose the streaming of children according to their ability to absorb instruction often forget that the final result could be even more cruel to the children who do not make the grade and suffer repeated failures. The end product could be that they lose both self-confidence and self-esteem, and develop a host of character defects produced by feelings of inadequacy.
"Much of the prejudice against the streaming of school children derives from an egalitarian philosophy fashionable in the Western World after World War II. This philosophy partly rests on a prejudice against the pursuit of excellence. We do not want to enter into a controversy against those egalitarian ideas. Perhaps this is just what Western societies need. But in Singapore, many of the problems in the present school system would not have arisen if those concerned had earlier accepted the logical consequences of the fact that different children have different capacities to acquire knowledge, and following what other countries do will not help much. The system has been structured such that only the brightest 12 to 15 per cent of school children can cope. To subject the less able students to the same regime of learning has been the chief defect of our education system in the past."
As we know, in 1995, Singaporean students topped the ranking charts in both Maths and Science, beating their peers in every other country. From 16th place a dozen years before, the jump can only be attributed to the streaming system which had been in place for 15 years. Motivated by efficiency, this initiative produced an increase in the overall cohort participation rate for the new generation, and propelled Singapore into a different league. The success of our education system also assisted in the rapid advance of the economy, which grew by 9.2 per cent in 1989.
However, streaming also led to the labelling of students, the further stratification of society and the growth of apathy - effects which could not have been predicted by Dr Goh. The streaming system, after all, was a product of the times, and has since changed as circumstances have dictated. Indeed, it has now evolved into "specialised independent schools". In this issue of EduNation I have brought up the topic of streaming not with the intention of reviving it, but to remind everyone that our impeccable results, which have come at some cost, should not be under-valued or taken for granted. We might not always be at the top of the ranking game, so we should now set about learning from other countries that have successfully managed a fall after such a heady rise.
Translated by: Lee Xiao Wen
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