Channel NewsAsia - 50 minutes
ago
SINGAPORE: Academic excellence is not the only key performance
indicator (KPI) for schools, Minister for Education Tharman
Shanmugaratnam said in Parliament on Tuesday.
Responding to MPs’ calls on tracking schools’ performances and
keeping sight of broader outcomes in education, he said his
ministry is mindful of keeping a balance when defining its KPIs in
education.
Mr Tharman said some of the most important things highlighted by
the MPs, such as character building and racial integration, are
values that cannot be measured; and so is the balance between
encouraging and challenging students to do better.
He was responding to a question over an incident at the start of
the school year when the principal of a girls’ school told a group
of Secondary 5 students they should go to an Institute of Technical
Education as they were unlikely to do well in the O—Levels at
year’s end.
Public feedback to this incident was divided as to whether such
straight—talking would demoralise the students and affect their
confidence or spur them to do better.
He explained how he sees the issue: "Different schools have
different methods, different principals have different methods. The
ministry tries not to scrutinise everything they say, everything
they do as long as they haven’t committed a heinous offence. Let
them do their own thing and let parents judge the character of
their school."
"Over time they (parents) will know which school’s methods,
which principal’s methods work better than others. And individual
principals too will learn over time. Tweak here and there, improve
here and there because no one is perfect," he added.
The issue then is to find a balance between affirming children
and challenging them, which Mr Tharman said is always a key craft
of the school and its teachers.
The minister also cited how recent studies in the US found not
only does the child’s confidence matters, but also the teacher’s
effectiveness, his/her teaching, and the child’s willingness to put
in some hard work, all contribute to the education outcome.
In fact, a Brooklyn Institution study of the results of an
International Maths and Science Test showed the least confident
Singapore student ended up doing better than the most confident
American student.
Mr Tharman’s point was that while it is important to motivate
the student, the ministry should leave schools to find their own
balance on how they want to affirm or challenge the student.
The ministry will not intrude on the schools’ approaches unless
something goes completely wrong. And such autonomy, he said, is
what will help schools differentiate themselves qualitatively over
time. — CNA/ac