‘I am all for slaying the PSLE sacred cow,’ wrote a member of parliament in his blog. The Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) issue once again came under the spotlight. Popular opinions have been rising for scrapping the PSLE, for it puts unnecessary stress on young students and limits their holistic development. However, proponents of the system have been equally strong in their support for the exam, arguing that no viable alternative exists to ensure the fairness of selection. According to an online poll, the PSLE has been ranked the top ten most pressing issues faced by Singaporeans. It is high time for us to engage in the debate, as education is becoming more and more important in determining the future of a child and the the …show more content…
The repeated drilling in such areas usually backfire in reducing students’ passion, which defeats the purpose of education.
The PM Lee recently pointed out the increasing availability of choice as a way to alleviate the problems of the national exam. For example, we can enhance the exercise of the Direct School Admission that allows students talented in non-academic areas to be admitted before they go for the leaving exam. Moreover, we may also set up some pilot secondary schools that admit students based on their own standard other than the PSLE, and parents have the choice to opt out the PSLE to go for such schools. Academic performance and practice of such schools will be monitored by the MOE to assess the viability of such academic alternative.
Increasing choice is critical to reducing stress of students and parents. Because it is not an absolute necessity to go through the PSLE to enter a good school, students will have more freedom to pursue their interests and develop their qualities in other areas. But at the end of the day, we still need to have some scheme to differentiate capabilities, reward talents and provide incentives for hard work. It may not be a wise decision to scrap the PSLE. But rather, we need to diversify the schemes of assessments to discover different talents, while still maintaining fairness of education that is
Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.
NAPLAN, the assessment program launched almost 9 years ago and already a subject of criticism and controversy, is becoming increasing intertwined with education in NSW. The NSW Education Standards Authority has attempted to address what they call “falling standards” in the NSW education system, implementing harsher standards that mean preventing students failing to receive a Band 8 from receiving a HSC. These “minimum standards”, backed by former minister for education Adrian Piccoli, have already garnered considerable attention and criticism. Already many parents believe that their children will no longer be able to obtain a HSC, and they will do anything to try and “push up” their child’s result- adding to the environment of already competitive pressure which we see in schools throughout NSW, and further fuelled by so-called “NAPLAN practice books” and aggressive private tutoring.
To ensure a seat for one's children in these schools, it is vital that the children take preparatory classes to sit for this exam. This can be achieved either through a private teacher or through online testing, a recent innovation. The latter option allows the child to take
\item The teachers always want their lessons to be interesting and they introduce the real life problem before they can go deep into the content of the subject.
To secure these rights, a sincere covenant must be made between student and educational institution to ensure that grades are a measure of learning and gain in knowledge. That when any form of schooling becomes destructive of this end and betrays its true purpose, it is not only the right but the imperative of the student to reject such schooling at the earliest opportunity and to institute a new form of knowledge assessment. Such a new form of assessment must lay its foundation on principles of learning, intrinsic inquiry, and natural curiosity.
The article claims that standardized tests ensures the best education possible for the students and provides three reasons of support. However, the lecture explains that these tests are not tools to help students or anyone and inhibit progress in shcools. She refutes each of the author’s reasons.
Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he is fed for a lifetime. In today’s society, education is very similar to this statement. Schools are commanded to teach aspects of life that only benefit the student for an end-of-the-year test. Students are not taught what is to come in the life after school. Because of the poor quality in education today, the emphasis on standardized test has become overwhelming.
How can we solve this concern? Scott does not reveal this because there is no real fix. Even though we know the problem it would be almost impossible to change the system at this point, it would then mean to change our entire culture. If we did not have set standards to distinguish those who are proficient then, there would be chaos. This article leaves the reader with a sense of being incapable to change the educational system. However, this article was created to try to transform the “system”, but just allow us to be aware of this “conditioning”. “…do what you have to do in order to fulfill the requirements and move on” (Scott 156). This quote allows the reader to realize what the school system really is; a bureaucratic structure while, giving the opportunity to self-assess our identity and express with
Students may become more interested in the object than the lesson that is being presented.
But the problem of this admission system is that it can’t recognize those kids who have real talent; the kids who are picked are those who have parents that can afford the prep test program. With this system, it’s possible that many students who have real talent might be missed. If this admission system can’t help us finding those talents, then there is no reason we maintain it. What we should do is exactly the opposite; we should abandon it and set up a new system which can really help us recognizing gifted
NAPLAN gives measure through which governments, training powers and schools can figure out if or not youthful Australians are meeting imperative instructive outcomes. It seems that teachers are pressured into taking time out of regular curriculum in order to satisfy the demands of the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy testing, on this basis NAPLAN has proven to be a controversial issue for Australian education as testing can cause stress and a range of adverse consequences to the education experience.
The topic of Standardized Testing is not only critical to the lives of students but also to parents, educators and those in control - government officials. The public has voiced its displeasure with today’s education system and a subject being discussed in the government and also the very popular presidential debates is the Common Core Standards and No Child Left Behind Act of modern America. These government issued Acts are mired in controversy as they have led to an education system governed by politics, with opposers claiming that education is now more focused on a school's’ statistics than an individual’s knowledge. Those involved with the introduction of the Acts, although they may have thought it would have brought about positive change,
Ever since standardized testing started being used as a way to evaluate the intelligence of students and the teachers’ ability to educate, the standard of actual education has been diminished immensely. Standardized testing is used in most public and private schools to analyze students’ knowledge. It has affected the way in which students learn and has corrupted the methods teachers use to educate. In some cases, English-Learning and disabled students face discrimination from teachers since teachers have more responsibility to have a high number of passing students. Some countries around the world don’t use standardized tests to rank their students or schools and yet they have been successful. Standardized tests are not efficient on making students learn, they should not be used to evaluate students’ knowledge.
“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.
Exams have caused a lack of enthusiasm in the mindset of scholars and encouraged students to have superficial knowledge which doesn’t last long. At the cost of writing exams are many individuals who do not succeed in a certain profession because they performed poorly on a particular exam. A change needs to be made to the system of education by creating a scheme which encourages students to work consistently and enthusiastically, and offers greater opportunity for each and every student to