Channel NewsAsia - 1 hour 43 minutes
ago
SINGAPORE: The GCE A—level examination results are out and
students have scored almost as well as the previous batch, despite
a new curriculum.
Last year was also the first time that students from the
Integrated Programme (IP) sat for the Cambridge examinations.
Top student Ian Wee is well on his way to becoming a clinician
scientist in neurobiology.
The IP student from Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) scored a total
of nine distinctions and his project on proteins is awaiting
publication in an international scientific journal.
Ian is one of 1,660 IP students who got their results on Friday.
The other two IP schools whose students sat for last year’s
Cambridge papers are National Junior College (NJC) and Raffles
Junior College (RJC).
IP students at Temasek Junior College and Victoria Junior
College, which offered the programme from 2005, will sit for their
A—level exams this year.
Having skipped the O—levels, IP students had their first taste
of the Cambridge exam at the A—levels. This year’s A—level cohort
is also the first batch to go through a new curriculum.
There is now a bigger emphasis on independent learning, project
work and inter—disciplinary subjects.
In this respect, some might say that IP students have an
advantage over the rest of the cohort. But educators said it is not
necessarily true because for several years now, the entire
education system has been moving towards ’teach less, learn
more’.
Indeed, the Education Ministry (MOE) said where broad
comparisons can be made with the old syllabus, performance across
the level is similar to last year’s results.
According to MOE figures, 87.5 percent or 11,418 of 13,053
students who sat for the exams last year obtained three Higher—2
(H2) passes and a pass in General Paper (GP) or Knowledge and
Inquiry a new inter—disciplinary paper.
90.1 percent of the students got at least two H2 and two H1
passes.
Last year, 88.2 percent had three A—level passes and a pass in
GP, while 91.1 percent scored at least two A2 and two AO passes,
including GP.
On the whole, IP students have fared as well as the others.
While RJC declined to make comparisons, HCI said its students,
who have all gone through part of the Integrated Programme, have
performed better than their seniors.
Over at NJC, where nearly one in four students are in the IP,
about half of them scored at least three distinctions, comparable
to last year’s batch.
But Ian feels that in some subjects, IP students like him have
the edge.
"A lot of my friends tell me that the Integrated Programme helps
when you do Knowledge and Inquiry because of the space that the IP
system gives you to discover more about yourself and to do the sort
of reflection that I think is quite essential to such a
philosophical subject," he said.
Over at Anglo—Chinese Junior College, it was a moment to savour
for Su Peng Tian, who has overcome a two—year battle with cancer to
score two As and two Bs.
He now wants to pursue medicine at university.
"Being a long—term patient, it helps me to experience, to see
more of what a patient and doctor’s relationship is, and what both
sides need from each other," said Peng Tian. — CNA/so
