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MOE caps ‘challenging questions’ in PSLE at 15% to keep difficulty level consistent; some parents call for lower cap

The Ministry of Education’s (MOE) director-general of education Liew Wei Li noted that some mathematics problems in PSLE papers have been “the centre of public discussion and debate” in recent years.<br />
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The Ministry of Education’s (MOE) director-general of education Liew Wei Li noted that some mathematics problems in PSLE papers have been “the centre of public discussion and debate” in recent years.
 
SINGAPORE — Singapore has kept a consistent standard of difficulty for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) over the years, an official from the Ministry of Education (MOE) said, and this is done by keeping 15 per cent of the questions “challenging”.
Some parents and tutors interviewed by TODAY bemoaned that this percentage is too high, even though education experts said that it does help to test students' abilities.
In an article on Friday on MOE's Schoolbag website, where two mathematics educators answered Frequently Asked Questions on children's learning of math, they said that for the more challenging math questions in the PSLE, “close to two-thirds of the cohort were able to partially or completely solve them”.
Freelance accountant and former primary school math teacher Seetar Krishnan, 46, said that the percentage of tough questions should be reduced to 5 per cent. While acknowledging that her percentage figure may be viewed as very low, she said that the well-being of children is more important. 

Private tutors such as Vijaya Kumar Nair, 64, a retired secondary school teacher, also said that the percentage could be lowered to 5 per cent, adding that he believes any assessment should be based on finding out whether students understand what is “already taught”. His view was that "two-thirds" of students being able to partially or completely solve challenging questions is too few.

Dr Ridzuan Abd Rahim, a mathematics curriculum specialist at MOE's curriculum planning and development division, said that the questions in the 15 per cent bracket are meant for students to engage and apply the general mathematical process rather than having specific strategies for specific questions.

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