Singaporean Education System Undergoes a Reform

Singapore is one country that has always given importance to academics and education. Long study hours and rote learning has always been in trend in Singapore. Lately, Singapore has realised that there is need for an educational reform as exams cannot be the sole criterion to rank a student. More emphasis and focus should be upon discussions, homework and quizzes rather than marks and grades.

Discussions, homework and quizzes should be used to assess the performance of young primary school pupils. Starting from 2019, the exams for students of primary year 1 and 2 shall be abolished. Even the students studying in higher classes shall be made to study in a less competitive environment. The marks for each subject shall be rounded off to the nearest whole number without decimal places. This shall help in lowering the emphasis on academic success. Singapore’s education minister stated that education is not a competition. It’s not a race wherein one student needs to compete and win from the other one. The Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore is planning to implement a number of changes in order to reduce the comparison and competition like feelings among students. They want to encourage the students to focus on their all-round development rather than only on academic performance. A lot of new practices have been introduced in order to bring about and implement this new initiative such as the low grades in report cards shall not be highlighted like before. Neither will the fail or pass status at the end of the year be recorded. Singapore’s new approach to education is in stark contrast to the neighbouring states that crowd the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) education rankings. The OECD assesses every 3 years the worldwide education systems by testing the comparative science, reading and mathematics proficiency of 15-year-old students. Singapore has set the standard for exam success by achieving a mean score of 1,655 in the three core subjects tested by PISA’s 2-hour exam in 2016. The top four places are dominated by Asia Pacific education systems, with Hong Kong, Japan and Macau. These demonstrate strong exam performance. The United Kingdom has occupied the 22nd place in the ranking.  On the other hand US is ranked at 30^th, as a result scoring 1,463, which is below the average score of 1,476. The new policies are bringing about a shift from exam perfection to create more rounded individuals. This indeed will completely reform the entire education system in Singapore. The new policies will bring about social development among pupils to raise self-awareness and build decision-making skills. A lot of planning has been done for implementing a series of applied learning programmes also. These programmes will attract the focus of students towards drama and sports, as well as more industry-focussed areas like computers, robotics and electronics. The Ministry has assigned a team of individuals so as to change the perceptions of students and push them towards other fields apart from banking, civil service and medicine. Although change is never easy to inculcate but bringing about change in the present scenario is of utmost importance. One thing that isn’t going to change is the primary school leaving certificate. It is usually taken at the age of 11- 12 years. Although it is stressful but traditionally serves as a route to a high level government career. Alongside even skills that an individual needs to possess for a job are undergoing a change. Just like economies like Singapore are changing for better in the field of education, similarly there is a need for other economies also to pace up and match up with the needs of the present scenario.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/singapore-has-abolished-school-exam-rankings-here-s-why/