FOREIGN students have aced the O-level examinations again.
Of the 25 students who scored nine A1s, half were from outside
Singapore: nine of the 25 were from China, two from Malaysia and
one from Korea.
Last year, about a dozen out of 39 students with nine A1s - also
about a third - were from China.
Their teachers say these students deserve their grades because they
work hard and are motivated.
What is more remarkable about the China students is that most of
them arrived here as recently as two years ago, with barely a
Primary 4 foundation in English.
But if the foreigners seem to figure prominently among those who
bag straight As, it is also because the cream of the Singapore
student cohort has left the O-level route for the Integrated
Programme (IP).
IP students bypass the O-levels, but go on to take the A-level or
International Baccalaureate exams.
Among the China students whose results shone on Friday was
18-year-old Cai Sang of Anderson Secondary.
Just 18 months ago, she failed the first English exam she sat for
at the school because she could not even understand the
questions.
The only daughter of a teacher and civil servant then decided to
pour all her energy into the language: She started by memorising
the Longman dictionary.
She covered it in half a year, but when that did not improve her
grades by much, she decided to change tack by reading the
classics.
She said: 'I was frustrated and demoralised because I kept getting
C5 and C6 no matter how hard I tried. But I just told myself to
keep working at it. It finally paid off.'
She is one of Anderson's two students with nine A1s. The other is
Singaporean Tim Wei Lun.
Local students like him are being spurred on by healthy competition
from their foreign-born peers.
River Valley High English teacher Muhammed Faizad Salim, 28, who
had 12 China students in his class, said they start outdoing the
Singaporeans in English in Secondary 4, which stirs up the locals
'because they don't want to lose out'.
The competition pushed at least one Singaporean student to
excellence.
Dunman High's Foo Wei Ting, who scored nine A1s, said she often
studied with her classmates from China as they were so
motivated.
'I heard they studied late into the night in the hostel...so
I...wanted to work hard as well,' said the eldest daughter of a
senior supervisor and a housewife.
The Ministry of Education also released lists of the top students
from each ethnic group on Friday.
The top Malay student was Zulaiha Said from Tanjong Katong Girls,
with eight A1s; the top Indian student was Norshima Nashi of Bukit
Panjang Government High, with eight A1s and two A2s; and the top
Eurasian student was Marialaura Lui from Zhonghua Secondary, with
seven A1s.
A total of 38,593 took the exams last year, out of which 31,490
(81.6 per cent) got five or more O-Level passes.
This is slightly better than in 2005, when 80.7 per cent of the
30,212 students bagged five or more passes.
(Straits Times 9 Feb)
