SINGAPORE — In response to President Halimah Yacob’s recent speech to open the last session of the 14th Parliament, Mr Gerald Giam, Workers’ Party Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC, expressed his concerns about the country’s education system and the need for Singaporeans to be financially literate.
Mr Giam, who is a parent of two children, said that Singapore’s education system has seen several changes over the years, but examinations remain central to it. He shared his personal experience of tutoring his own children, which provided him with insights into the academic curriculum and its continued focus on exams.
While he acknowledged that exams have positive effects such as incentivizing teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly and motivating students to work harder to gain a sense of accomplishment, he also pointed out the negative effects of exams.
Mr Giam argued that they can motivate students to aim for test mastery, instead of subject mastery, and encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time.
Mr Giam also raised concerns about how exams typically assess only certain aspects of a learner’s knowledge and overlook other facets of their education.
He added that national exams induce tremendous amounts of stress on students, which can have negative effects on learning and knowledge retention and, in extreme situations, could become chronic.
Furthermore, Mr Giam criticized the streaming and subject-based banding approaches, which sort students into good, average and weak students based on their test scores.
While he acknowledged that the ostensible reason for implementing this sorting mechanism is to provide some assurance that the student can cope with the rigours of that subject or subject level before being allowed to take it, he argued that it can channel students away from their interests.
Mr Giam referred to the Workers’ Party’s proposal of a 10-year through-train programme from Primary 1 to…
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