Banding for secondary schools and academic awards to be
removed: MOE
SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Education (MOE) has announced that
it will be doing away with both the school banding system as well
as the giving out of school awards based on sustained academic
achievements. These moves were announced at the MOE workplan
seminar yesterday by Minister for Education Heng Swee Keat and aim
to shift the emphasis of schooling away from academic
results.
The banding concept, first introduced in 2004, saw secondary
schools being grouped with other schools which achieved similar 'O'
levels scores into nine broad bands. This concept replaced the
earlier model of school rankings, which had been criticised for
encouraging a single-minded focus on academic achievements.
Mr Heng said that banding of schools will be removed as "there is
no single yardstick of to measure how 'good' our schools
are".
He added that awards such as the School Excellence Award and
Sustained Achievement Award, as well as the Academic Value-added
awards, will be removed from 2014. These awards, which have been in
place since 1998 to recognise schools for their academic and
non-academic achievements, will be replaced by internal monitoring
instead.
In order to continue to identify schools for their strengths, MOE
will still recognise schools according to five broad categories:
Best Practice in Teaching and Learning, Best Practice in Student
All-Rounded Development, Best Practice in Staff Development and
Well Being and two new categories of Best Practice in Character and
Citizenship Education and Best Practice in Partnership.
In line with MOE's call to involve parents in their child's
education, Mr Heng also launched a new Parents in Education website
yesterday - containing information ranging from parenting tips to
education initiatives. More resources will also be provided to
schools such as best practices on engaging parents and the
community, he said.
Mr Heng, who is leading Singapore's ongoing national conversation,
added that MOE will be holding dialogues with educators, parents
and students to envision the future of the Singapore's education
system.
TODAY