EDUCATION Minister Ng Eng Hen, in illustrating how education
remains a great social leveller, cited a statistic which showed
that half the pupils in the bottom third of our socio-economic
bracket obtained scores that placed them in the top two-thirds of
their PSLE cohort ('School system 'still best way to move up'';
yesterday).
The statistic does not reflect what is an important goal of
social mobility for parents: achieving desired mobility.
To show desired mobility, the Government should offer a
socio-economic comparison of the pupils in the top 5 per cent of
every PSLE cohort; that is, the performing elite. This elite band
are pupils who qualify for the cream of secondary schools such as
Raffles Institution, Hwa Chong Institution and Dunman High.
A related statistic which should be made available to the public
is how many of these elite pupils originated from prestigious
schools such as Raffles Girls' Primary and Nanyang Primary in the
Bukit Timah area.
A third relevant statistic which will offer a more complete
picture of social mobility: Find out how many parents of pupils in
the Primary School Leaving Examination's top 5 per cent spend
hundreds of dollars each month to ensure that their children gain
entry into the top secondary schools.
Surveys can be carried out to find out how much each family
spends on supplementary lessons for music, arts, dance and mother
tongue.
We should also find out how much parents spend to send their
children for pupil exchanges to beef up their co-curricular
activities, which offer them an alternative avenue into elite
schools via the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme.
My view is that our otherwise excellent school system favours
wealthier families.
To overcome the bias, we should do away with primary affiliation
admission offered by some secondary schools so that schools level
the same PSLE cut-off points for all.
The DSA should be tweaked to level the playing field. Pupils
admitted through DSA must meet the schools' PSLE cut-off points,
which they need not currently.
Finally, consider regulating the tuition industry to provide
fair access for all.
Cheong Tuck Kuan