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Emphasise various assessments, not just national exams: Expert

SINGAPORE — As Singapore prepares to take part in a global study measuring skills acquired by citizens during their schooling journey, one expert feels that the education system here could place greater emphasis on a variety of assessments, instead of relying solely on high-stakes national exams.

SINGAPORE — As Singapore prepares to take part in a global study measuring skills acquired by citizens during their schooling journey, one expert feels that the education system here could place greater emphasis on a variety of assessments, instead of relying solely on high-stakes national exams.

This could involve a “multi-layer framework”, where a student receives daily verbal feedback on his strengths and weaknesses, is assessed regularly at the class and school level, and then evaluated in national exams, said Mr Andreas Schleicher, who is Deputy Director for Education and Skills at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Such continuous feedback, he said, is everyone’s responsibility. After teachers provide the diagnostics, parents must work with their child. Students must also be cognisant of their abilities and seek improvement, said Mr Schleicher, who was speaking on the sidelines of The New York Times’ Global Forum Asia last Friday.

The goal would be that any test would serve as “just one facet in assessment culture”, with parents and students having fewer worries, he added.

Mr Schleicher, who frequently visits Singapore to study the education system here, cited Finland as a country with a positive assessment culture.

But he also warned against doing away with national exams completely. Asked about Singapore’s Primary School Leaving Examination, currently under review, he said the “answer is not in testing less”. In Finland, where the country is grappling with high youth unemployment, more national exams could serve as “clear goalposts” of good performance for teachers, students and parents. “It is very hard to get good signalling devices into an education system without a strong exam culture,” said Mr Schleicher.

He stressed that education must be more than “just sorting people”. “It is about finding the extraordinary talents of ordinary students and fostering those talents,” he said, adding that schools and teachers can have a bigger role in the evaluation process.

Next year, 5,000 Singaporeans aged between 16 and 65 will take part in an OECD survey covering areas such as literacy and numeracy. The survey was first launched this year and involved 166,000 people — from 22 OECD member countries as well as Russia and Cyprus — who sat through intense questioning about their skills and background.

Speaking at the event on the survey, Mr Schleicher noted: “The future isn’t counting degrees and qualifications, the future is about looking at what people can deliver.”

He noted that children in East Asia, including Singapore, engage heavily in private tuition, which provides “specific content knowledge (that) is going to depreciate very rapidly” in a changing world.

The demand for tuition is in part due to the “old-fashioned” university admission system that still relies largely on students’ grades. Hence, such systems should inject elements such as interviews or open-ended tasks, he suggested.

Nevertheless, he expressed optimism for the future of Singapore’s education system, saying he did not expect “many surprises” in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which will be released on Dec 3.

In 2009, the ranking of education systems — which measured 15-year-olds’ abilities in reading, mathematics and science — placed Singapore fifth among 65 countries.

“The results are of the work that is being done ... not just in terms of policies conceived but actually implemented. Singapore is rapidly moving forward,” said Mr Schleicher, who helps oversee PISA.

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