Upon receiving PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exams) results, a student with score around 200 will have to decide whether to join the Express stream or Normal Academic (NA) stream. Many parents are not aware of the various progress paths available to their child when opting for NA stream. The lack of understanding often causes parents to believe that no matter how hard their child study, he is left only with very limited education progress options.
Refined Promotion Criteria For NA – Effective 2009
According to Ministry of Education, prior to 2009, 78% of Normal stream students were able to make it to Sec 5. However, only 60% of the Sec-5 students were able to do well enough at O-levels to be eligible for admission into polytechnics and junior colleges. In other words, almost half of the Normal stream students moved on to the ITE (Institute Of Technical Education) path, irrespective of whether they studied 4 or 5 years in their secondary school.
In 2009, Ministry Of Education announced measures “to refine the promotion criteria of NA students for better alignment with Polytechnic Admission Criteria”. One of the main ideas of the refinement is to encourage Normal stream student to opt for ITE after Sec-4 rather than going Sec-5. This is to cut down the wastage for the 40% student who have studied Sec-5 but are not making it to polytechnics and junior colleges.
Effectively, Refined Promotion Criteria raised the standard of N-level examinations to align with the expected admission requirements of polytechnics. Correspondingly, to encourage students to join ITE after N-level examinations, additional options were offered to make entrance into ITE easier.
Parent’s Perspective On Refined Promotion
When comparing the N-level textbooks before and after 2008, parents will notice that the level of difficulty has increased. For example, NA Math textbooks are now only 1 or 2 chapters less than the Express textbook, a great contrast to the past of 4 to 6 topics short per year.
For parents, one question naturally comes to mind is: Why opt for Normal stream if there is little difference in the level of difficulty between Express and Normal streams. The next logical step to take is to apply for their child a school with lower cut-of-point (COP) for Express stream. Generally a “reputable” secondary school would require higher COP (typically around 210) for entry into Express stream. At PSLE score of 200, a parent may rather choose for her child a “not-so-popular” school, which offer Express stream at lower COP (some as low as 198).
Opting Express Stream
For parents who decide to opt for the Express stream for their borderline child, it is equally important to motivate their child to strive for good academic results. Most school will demote their students to N-level between Sec-1 to Sec-3 if the academic performance is poor. Even if they manage to progress to Sec-3 Express, they will be asked to repeat Sec-3 if their performance is below expectations.
In simple terms, PSLE result is an indicator for parents to know how many years their child will take to complete their Secondary study. At the score of 200 or below, a student must be willing to work hard academically in order to complete their secondary education in 4 years. As parents, the most important job is to motivate their child to strive for good academic results. This requires constant supervision on their child, helping them to patch up on their academic weaknesses, especially Math, English and Science.
Opting Normal Academic Stream
What most parents are not aware of is the “4-year path” opportunity in the Normal Academic option. Normal Academic students who perform well will be allowed transfer promotion to Express stream in Secondary 1 or 2. For the few parents who know this, sending their child to do Normal Academic in “reputable” schools is better option as these schools are also known to have NA-to-Express transfer promotion rate of 50% or higher in Secondary 1.
It is therefore important for parents to check with a school on their NA-to-Express transfer promotion rate in Sec-1. If the percentage is high, it is an indication that the school offers better Normal Academic program in terms of teaching resources and management.
Another indicator to check is how rigorous the school implements disciplinary strictness. While most schools offer good pastoral care, it is effective only when there is also a strict disciplinary master. By third month of Sec-1, most N-level students will tell you that their class is noisy all the time. This peer influence will reflect very quickly in their first term report book. The subjects a student do well is usually those with very strict teachers, able to keep students quiet in class.
Through-Train Pathways for Normal Academic Students
In September 2010, Ministry Of Education announced new “Through-Train Pathways for Normal (Academic) Students”. Through-Train was introduced into Normal Academic stream in 2004 which was meant for student to bypass O-level exams to move on to higher learning. However, most through-train programs are still for 5-year education before entering into Tertiary Institutions.