{"id":27534,"date":"2020-12-23T11:10:48","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T03:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/?p=27534"},"modified":"2021-01-08T15:03:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T07:03:09","slug":"a-new-era-of-primary-school-education-in-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2020\/12\/23\/a-new-era-of-primary-school-education-in-singapore\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Era of Primary School Education in Singapore"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_27535\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27535\" style=\"width: 572px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-27535\" src=\"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/PSLE-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"572\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/PSLE-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/PSLE-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/PSLE-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/PSLE-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/PSLE-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 572px) 100vw, 572px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27535\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Flickr\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/voxstock\/26093833532\/\">Shawn Lim<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the Channel News Asia commentary \u201cPSLE scores could impact life outcomes. So don\u2019t let them\u201d Dr Kelvin Seah Kah Cheng (NUS Department of Economics) writes about the subject-based banding (SBB) system that primary schools here are adopting. He explains that SBB aims to lower the pressure of the demanding Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) on students by altering the common curriculum to one that allows students to pursue their strengths and interests.<\/p>\n<p>While encouraging stories of Singaporeans who have done well in their lives despite performing poorly for their PSLE are popular in the media, the impact of segregating students into academic streams of varied rigour has been deemed problematic. Students from express and normal academic streams often hail from different backgrounds which influences their academic performance due to factors that include \u201cfamily income, parents\u2019 education [and] innate ability\u201d. These differences highlight the value of SBB, which allows students to learn subjects at a pace that best suits them.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Seah recognises the merits of SBB, such as that it provides a customised education and more opportunities for students of different abilities to mingle in their subject-specific classes. However, he also cautions that SBB must allow for flexibility during the promotion process so that \u201clate bloomers\u201d are not left behind. Essentially, students must be allowed to read a subject at a greater level of difficulty without the hurdle of their teachers having to write hefty reports to justify their promotion.<\/p>\n<p>Read the article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/news\/commentary\/psle-scores-how-much-do-they-matter-exams-life-beyond-grades-13750988\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the Channel News Asia commentary \u201cPSLE scores could impact life outcomes. So don\u2019t let them\u201d Dr Kelvin Seah Kah Cheng (NUS Department of Economics) writes about the subject-based banding (SBB) system that primary schools here are adopting. He explains that SBB aims to lower the pressure of the demanding Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27534"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27578,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27534\/revisions\/27578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}