Serious PSLE scores to fall into 8 bands from 2021, T-score to be scrapped

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http://www.todayonline.com/singapore...scoring-system

INGAPORE — In what is set to be the biggest revamp to the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) to date, Primary 6 students sitting for the national exam in 2021 will not be receiving an aggregate “T-score”.

Instead, the marks they receive for each exam will fall into a range of eight bands, and the corresponding points added up, similar to the GCE ‘O’-Levels grading.

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And without the T-score system, students’ performance will no longer be weighted against those of their peers.

Under the new scoring system, students who score 90 marks and above will be awarded achievement level (AL) one, which equates to one point.

The lowest band is AL 8, for those scoring 20 marks and below. The best possible score is 4 points, and the worst is 32.

The current Primary One cohort will be the first to sit for exams under this new system.

The changes, which followed a review, were announced by the Ministry of Education (MOE) on Wednesday (July 13). Commenting on the changes, Acting Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng said the new scoring system is intended to ease the pressure students face in competing against the performance of their peers.

"Going forward, MOE will be engaging parents and students so that they better understand this new system and we will take the next few months to work with educators and schools to go through (the changes)," said Mr Ng.

Plans to tweak the PSLE scoring system were first announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the National Day Rally in 2013, who noted the “tremendous stress” on students and families. The changes, he had said, would “reduce excessive competition to chase that last point”, where students were graded against their peers.

This move is the latest in a slew of initiatives taken by the Government to remove excessive focus on academic results. For instance, the name of top PSLE scorers have not been made public since 2012.

In 2004, then-Acting Minister for Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced the merging of EM1 and EM2 Streams, while EM3 remained a different course of study focusing on foundational knowledge for academically less inclined students.


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