Normal stream students can take subjects at higher level from Sec One from 2018: MOE

SINGAPORE — As part of ongoing efforts to recognise students’ abilities and to stretch their potential, from next year, all secondary schools offering Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) courses will allow students to take subjects at a higher level from Secondary One.

Students will be able to take higher level subjects if they perform well at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) or in school-based assessments such as the mid-year or final-year exams, announced Education Minister (Schools) Ng Chee Meng at the Ministry of Education (MOE) Committee of Supply debate on Tuesday (March 7).

This initiative, called subject-based banding (SBB), was introduced to lower secondary students in 12 schools under a pilot in 2014. Before that, only upper secondary students can take up a higher-level subject.

Responding to TODAY’s queries on the pilot, MOE said about 50 per cent of N(A) students and around 70 per cent of N(T) students in each cohort – from 2014 to 2016 – in the 12 schools took at least one high-level subjects from Secondary One. This translates to about 700 students in total each year.

The ministry also said that most students continued studying at least one higher-level subject in their upper secondary years, only a small number drop out as they could not keep up.

Speaking in Parliament, Mr Ng highlighted that the SBB not only helps students deepen their learning in areas of strengths, but it also “helps our students build confidence, and opens up new post-secondary possibilities for them”.

When asked whether the changes indicate that streaming at the secondary level might soon be done away with, MOE said that it is not something that it will “hastily jump into”. It will be focusing on rolling out the SBB to all levels and in all schools.

“As of now our conclusion is that it is still something that we need. There’s a practical dimension and even for an educational reason, it is still to broadly cater to students based on academic abilities,” said the MOE.

Meanwhile, in response to Member of Parliament (MP) for Ang Mo Kio GRC Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar’s question on whether MOE should do away with streaming at the secondary level, Mr Ng acknowledged that there are concerns that streaming “can inadvertently discourage some students”.

Still, he noted that it has also served students well as the three course – Express, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) – have catered to different learning needs and pace and have succeeded in keeping students engaged in schools.

This, he added, allows students to progress in their studies, and as a result, the attrition rate are very low.

“Nonetheless, I recognise that we cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach. We have increased porosity across the various courses,” said Mr Ng. “For late bloomers, they can transfer to a more demanding course if they are able to cope with the academic.”