Exams aren’t everything

PRIMARY EDUCATION

Govt accepts recommendations to gradually introduce other forms of assessment

Lin Yanqin, yanqin@mediacorp.com.sg

 

 

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen observing a class at Greenridge Primary. Ernest Chua

 

IT HAS been a proposal some parents have welcomed, and others worried about.

Having alternative modes of assessments in Primary 1 and 2 to the traditional twice-a-year examinations were among recommended changes to primary school education the Government accepted yesterday.

But it will not be a dramatic change overnight, said Education Minister Ng Eng Hen.

As the work of the committee reviewing primary education now enters into the implementation stage, Dr Ng signalled that it would be a long-term work in progress.

The timeframe, he told reporters during a visit to Greenridge Primary, is more of a “10-year plan”, as the Ministry of Education (MOE) starts to build more schools and train more teachers, while schools prepare to introduce bite-sized forms of holistic assessment. “As in most educational ventures, you have to train thousands of teachers, you have to make sure parents understand, you have to teach down to the very last child in the primary schools,” said Dr Ng.

He revealed that the ministry will spend about $4.8 billion to implement the recommendations, which include schools going single session by 2016 and introducing a Programme for Active Learning in areas such as sports and the arts.

The MOE also aims to lower the pupil-teacher ratio from the current 21:1 to 16:1 by 2015, build 18 new schools and upgrade 80 existing schools.

In the case of Greenridge Primary, although it introduced topical assessments — which test individual components such as reading skills — four years ago, these form only part of the pupils’ grades, as the school has continued with traditional exams.

This year, it will do away with mid-year exams, but may retain the year-end one.

“Parents still want some form of assessment to know that their child is ready for Primary 2,” said vice-principal Liza Rahmat. “We have to do this gradually.”

But the new system has notably taken the stress off pupils, she noted, as each assessment focuses on one area rather than the entire syllabus.

“Also, assessments are done in a classroom environment, such as through Show and Tell, so it’s not stressful like a traditional sit-down test or exam,” said Ms Liza.

That is not the only drawback of relying on exams at such a young age.

Dr Ng said: “If you give a mark, say 60. What does that mean? It doesn’t give feedback. The proper feedback to the pupil or to the parent is to say what (the pupil) was weak in and what (the pupil) was strong in.”

Parents at Greenridge yesterday were happy with the results so far.

Mdm Wendy Low, 32, said that compared with her older child who went through the previous exam-oriented system from the start, her younger child was better able to absorb what he was taught.

“He’s more confident because everything is broken into small components and he understands each topic better,” said Mdm Low.

From TODAY, News – Wednesday, 15-April-2009