Upon receiving PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exams) results, a student with score around 160 will have to decide whether to join the Normal Technical (NT) stream or Normal Academic (NA) stream in secondary school. Most parents would not want their child to be posted to NT stream as it does not offer much option for educational progress. Most NT students are left only with the choice of ITE (Institute Of Technical Education) after 4-year of Secondary education.
Golden Year For NT-To-NA Switch
However, many parents are not aware of the promotional path for NT student in Secondary 1. Most importantly, parents are not aware that Sec-1 NT is the golden year for a student to work hard and earn a transfer promotion to Sec-2 NA in following year.
If a NT student misses this golden year, any academic merits in subsequent year will only earn him a lateral transfer to the NA stream. Lateral transfer is not advancement but a “repeat-year switchover” to NA. For example, an outstanding Sec-2 NT student will only be allowed to switchover to Sec-2 NA in the following year. Similarly Sec-3 NT student can switch over to Sec-3 NA and Sec-4 NT over to Sec-4 NA.
Second Golden Year For NA-To-Express Switch
Once a NT student is granted transfer promotion to NA stream, he stands further chance for transfer promotion to Express stream in Secondary 3. This is again a golden year opportunity as NA-to-Express transfer promotion is allowed only up to Secondary 2. If the NT-to-NA student misses this second golden year, there will be no more opportunity for transfer promotion into Express stream beyond Sec-2 NA.
A NT student can therefore complete his O-level in 4, 5 or 6 years. If the NT student works hard in first two year, he will complete O-level in 4 years as an Express student. Whereas if he works hard only for one year, he will complete O-level in 5 years as a Sec-5 NA student. If he misses the golden year in Sec-1 NT, he will have to work hard for a lateral transfer into the NA stream. The repeat year will make it 6 years for him to complete O-level as a Sec-5 NA student.
Selecting Good Normal Technical School
When selecting school for NT education, parents should pay special attention to the PSLE score range of the school. The smaller the score range the better as this would allow their child to mix with students of the same standard. For example, a school with score range of 140 to 160 is far better than a school with range of 110 to 170.
Parents should also check with the school on their NT-to-NA transfer promotion rate in Secondary 1 golden year. Some schools motivate their Sec-1 NT students to work hard towards transfer promotion. If the percentage is high, it is an indication that the school offers better Normal Technical program in terms of teaching resources and management.
Schools With Good NT Teaching Programs
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.
It is therefore important to check with school on the NT teaching resources. Some schools specially select teachers with passion, aptitude and skills to teach NT students. These teachers received special training on educational psychology and teaching strategies to execute classroom management.