PSLE scoring system to be revamped

FireIce SG

To encourage students to go beyond book smarts, the aggregate score for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) will be replaced with wider scoring bands from 2021.

The new scoring system, which affects this year's Primary 1 pupils, will be similar to grading at O and A levels, said Acting Education Minister Ng Chee Meng (Schools) as he announced his ministry's plans on Friday during the Committee of Supply debate in Parliament.

PSLE grading will also no longer be based on how pupils do relative to their peers, as it is now, he explained, adding that the hope is that this will encourage students to focus on their own learning rather than competing to do better than their peers.

Mr Ng said: "Today, there is a deeply ingrained mind-set that the PSLE is a very high-stakes exam. Many perceive that a child's PSLE T-score at the age of 12 determines his or her success and pathway in life.

"The main issue to address is that the way we currently score the PSLE is too precise, and differentiates our students more finely than necessary. We should therefore, in time, move away from such fine distinctions, which are not meaningful, especially at that young age."

The Ministry of Education (MOE) will take the next few years to develop and test the new exam and secondary school posting systems, said Mr Ng. The posting system will still be a fair and transparent system based on academic merit, he added. More details will be revealed in the next two to three months.

The PSLE review was first announced by PM Lee Hsien Loong in 2013. It is meant to reduce the over-emphasis on academic results and allow students more time and space to develop holistically.

Mr Ng stressed the need for a paradigm shift towards holistic education.

He admitted that despite efforts to change, there is still a narrow emphasis on academics and paper qualifications. "This is deeply ingrained in out culture," he said, and even manifests in employer mind-sets. While MOE can take the lead in moving away from an excessive focus on academics, it will take parents and the community to come aboard, he added.

Mr Ng said that the MOE will also review the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme to realign it with its original intent to recognise achievements and talents in specific areas instead of general academic ability.

While many students have benefited from DSA, "there is some unevenness in how different schools select their DSA students", he added.

To address this, MOE intends to expand the DSA opportunities in more secondary schools for students with specific strengths, and it will also "sharpen the focus of the DSA" to better recognise talents and achievements in specific domains rather than general academic ability that can be demonstrated through the PSLE.

Introduced in 2004, DSA was intended to promote holistic education by providing opportunities for students to be recognised for a more diverse range of achievements and talents, such as in sports and arts, when seeking admission to secondary schools.

The DSA has been criticised for turning into a channel for students to secure places in the most sought-after Integrated Programme schools whose students bypass the O levels. Some parents also send their children for DSA preparation classes and enrichment programmes to boost their chances of doing well in interviews and auditions.

"Today, I fear we are over-crowding our young ones with a narrow focus on academics. While we have their interests at heart, too much of one thing impedes rather than support growth," said Mr Ng. "The changes to come will help to reduce emphasis on exam results, but there is no silver bullet to the issues of stress and competition.

"While MOE can change policies and structures, ultimately, this is a personal journey for every child, parent and family."

Chemguide7 SG

I wonder if those who are weak in Mother Tongue may be more penalised under the new system?

Let us say in the new system, a student misses the A grade by 1 mark and scores B in Mother Tongue and 2 As for his other subjects, he would be at a lower ranking than one who scored 3 As including A for mother tongue, but it turns out that the one who is weaker in Mother Tongue has higher T score as under the old PSLE system?

There maybe pros and cons in the new grading system too.

FireIce SG

now they will be subjected to bell curve

hiphop2009 SG

and the posting of the secondary school system....

gekpohboy SG

Actually, many years ago, in around year 2002/2003, there was also a change in the grading of PSLE.

This year's change is the same.

The only difference in this year's change is that instead of the aggregate score, it's gonna be something like L1R3, L1R4, etcetera.

As for the secondary school posting, I guess it will remain the same, except now may be "lower the better" instead of "higher the better".

Anyway, I hope they can do away with NT stream. Of the three streams, NT is the only one that does not have the prospect of taking O levels. A bit not fair. Might as well have NA and EXP streams only. Then all those who can make it in sec 4 N level can move on to take O level at sec 5. At least give chance to the late boomers (slow learners) to take a longer time to shine. If they want to reduce the stress, removing the NT stream altogether will help.

FireIce SG

The Straits Times
Sunday, Apr 17, 2016

The scrapping of the aggregate score from the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) was a long time coming, said most parents who are glad that children will no longer be so finely segregated based on a few marks.

They also hope that the move to wider scoring bands in 2021 will cut down on excessive competition among children and parents in the chase for that last mark.

Marketing manager Bernard Ong, 34, who has a four-year-old son, said: "Many parents are so obsessed with the single score a child gets at the PSLE and forget that he or she has other attributes too."

Still, one burning question remains: How will pupils be sorted into secondary schools?

Since they will be graded on wider bands, more are expected to qualify for top schools, which already receive more applications than they have places available.

Applicants are now filtered according to their PSLE scores.

Mrs D. Fong, 40, who works in the finance industry and has a son in Primary 1 and a daughter in Primary 2, said: "How will we know which grades we need for which schools? And if many pupils get four As, how will schools choose?"

There seems to be two possible options. One is a computerised balloting system in which applicants are subject to the luck of the draw.

The other is to give schools the discretion to pick.

This could involve looking at a child's co-curricular activity involvement, volunteer work, leadership roles, character development and other skills and talents beyond academics, such as in the music and the arts.

It may also include an interview.

Parents were split between the two. Part-time piano teacher Joyce Wong, a 41-year-old mother of three children aged five to 13, said balloting will give everyone a fair chance of getting into a school.

"If schools start to look at CCA records or other talents, it will benefit parents who can afford external enrichment classes, which are not cheap," she said.

Besides, there is the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme which started in 2004 and recognises non-academic talents.

It has led to extra competition to put together a standout portfolio of achievements beyond grades among pupils who hope to join Integrated Programme schools.

These schools let students progress to junior college without sitting the O-level exams.

Ms Denise Phua, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education, points out that the DSA scheme needs to be improved further "so that it will not end up favouring those who can afford to be nurtured from young to meet its non-academic eligibility standards".

It should consider the grit and resilience shown by students in overcoming obstacles, as well as those with special needs.

"If there is fear of favouritism as a result of subjectivity, then introduce a small panel as a form of check and balance," she added.

Balloting is already familiar to parents here.

It is used during the Primary 1 registration exercise when there are more applications than vacancies in a school.

But Dr Timothy Chan, director of SIM Global Education's academic division, wonders if parents will be willing to leave a key decision such as secondary school posting to luck.

"Will they accept an outcome based on pure chance?" he asked.

Other parents, such as freelance art instructor Nora Yeo, who has two children aged 10 and 15, prefer secondary schools to be the ones to choose among applicants.

The 39-year-old admits this may lead to more stress.

She said: "Parents are always finding ways to beat the system. They may send their kids for everything to stand a better chance."

Housewife Lydia Tan, 38, who has a six-year-old son, also prefers the schools to choose. "What if my child works really hard and achieves top marks, and yet can't get into his dream school because he wasn't as lucky?" she said.

Acting Education Minister (Schools) Ng Chee Meng has explained that his ministry will spend the next few years developing and testing the secondary school posting system.

More details will be announced in two to three months.

However, students who had taken the PSLE said the move to wider scoring bands is a good thing, especially since future batches will not have to get so worried about a few marks.

Still, Secondary 4 student Ashley Tan, 16, said it would not have changed how hard she studied.

"I wouldn't slack. There's no guarantee that I would get an A."

How the T-score is calculated

Short for "transformed score", the Primary School Leaving Examination aggregate score is the sum of the T-scores in all four subjects - English, Maths, Science and Mother Tongue.

It is an adjusted score that shows how well a pupil does relative to his peers. It is calculated using the following formula:

T-Score = 50 + [10 x (raw score - mean)/standard deviation].

Raw score shows how good a pupil is in the subject. Mean refers to the average mark scored by the cohort. Standard deviation measures the "spread" of marks among the cohort.

If the mean is 55, and standard deviation is 10, it would mean that the cohort scored 10 marks around the average, from 45 to 65.

So if a pupil scores 80 in a subject, the average mark scored by his cohort is 60 and the standard deviation is 14, the T-score for the subject will be:

50 + [10 x (80-60)/14] = 64.29

This way of ranking has been criticised for fuelling unnecessary competition among pupils, who have to outdo one another to get a better score.