SINGAPORE - The number of primary school pupils applying to secondary schools through direct admissions continues to rise steadily, said the Ministry of Education’s director of schools.
Mrs Tan, who is also a deputy director-general at MOE, said: “We see it creeping up, which is not a bad thing because it’s part of what MOE has been doing in terms of encouraging schools to offer direct school admissions across the education landscape, and also, in the primary schools, to encourage parents to consider it.”
The new PSLE scoring system - intended to reduce fine differentiations in pupils’ grades - now scores the pupils in absolute bands of 1 to 8 for each subject. Under the previous system, pupils received a T-score which was calculated based on their peers’ results.She said that while the scoring and posting system has changed, the exams have not, and pupils’ performances have remained consistent.
She said: “The infamous bell curve, we must ring the death knell for the bell curve. Perhaps let me categorically state that the bell curve is not used for all national examinations, including the PSLE.” She said: “It’s a broader-base scoring system, and the reason we made those changes is really to shift parents and pupils away from that infatuation with their top choice.