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 options for his education progress.
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 to polytechnics and junior college. In other words, almost half (53%) 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 2007, 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 Sec-5, so as to cut down the wastage for the 40% student who studied Sec-5 but could not make it to polytechnics and junior college.
Effectively, the standard of N level examinations was raised to align with the expected admission requirements of the polytechnics. Correspondingly, to encourage students to join ITE after N level examinations, additional options were offered to make entrance into ITE easier.
A 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. Taking Math as example, the N-level textbooks are now only 1 or 2 topics 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 thing to do is to apply to a school with lower cut-of-point (COP) for Express stream. Normally a “reputable” school will have higher COP for their Express stream and is therefore harder to get in. In other words, the choice is therefore between studying in the Normal stream of the “reputable” school or the Express stream of an unknown school.
Opting Normal Stream
For parents choosing Normal stream for their children, it is important to know that there is still opportunity for their children to be promoted the Express stream in Sec-2. For this reason, do not go blindly for the “reputation” of the school. It is important to check on their percentage of students switching over to the Express stream after Sec-1, or even Sec-2. If the percentage is high, it is an indication that the school offers better Normal stream 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.
As parents, the final and most important job is to motivate the student 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 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 in Sec-1 and Sec-2 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 a good benchmark for parents to know how many years their child will take to complete their Secondary studies. At the score of 200 or below, the student must work very hard academically to make it 4 years in Secondary school. It is advisable for parent to supervise their child closely, helping them to patch up on their academic weaknesses, especially Math, English and Science.