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) or Normal Academic (NA) stream. Most parents would not want their child to be posted into the NT stream as it does not offer much option on 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
Many parents are not aware that Sec-1 NT is the golden year for their child to work hard and switch over to Sec-2 NA by the following year. If a NT student misses this golden year, any academic merits in subsequent year will only earn him a “repeat-year” in NA, and not an advancement. For example, an outstanding Sec-2 NT student will only be allowed to switch over to Sec-2 NA in the following year. Similarly Sec-3 NT switches over to Sec-3 NA and Sec-4 NT over to Sec-4 NA.
In other words, a hardworking NT student can do secondary education in 5 years if he works hard in the first year (Sec-1 NT followed by Sec-2 to Sec-5 NA). If he misses the switch in first year, he will have to do the secondary education in 6 years, with 1 year of repeat from NT to NA of the same level.
Schools With Good NT Teaching Programs
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 126 to 150 is far better than a school with range of 95 to 158.
It is also important to check with school whether their NT teachers are doing only NT students. Some schools specially select teachers with passion, aptitude and skills to teach NT students. These teachers are specially trained with study topics ranging from educational psychology to classroom management and teaching strategies.
Last of all, parents would want to find out more about the Sec-1 golden year for NT-To-NA switch. Some schools motivate their Sec-1 NT students to work hard towards the NT-To-NA switch after first year.