In our continuing look at the educational systems of both Singapore and Finland, we will discuss the issue of student ranking and streaming, and the related subject of high stakes testing or examinations.

The egalitarian nature of Finnish schools is seen especially with the absence of ranking of students or the streaming of students up to the age of 16. Among the fundamental principles upon which the the education system in Finland is built is:

The main objective of Finnish education policy is to offer all citizens equal opportunities to receive education, regardless of age, domicile, financial situation, sex or mother tongue. Education is considered to be one of the fundamental rights of all citizens. Firstly, provisions concerning fundamental educational rights guarantee everyone (not just Finnish citizens) the right to free basic education; the provisions also specify compulsory education. Secondly, the public authorities are also obligated to guarantee everyone an equal opportunity to obtain other education besides basic education according to their abilities and special needs, and to develop themselves without being prevented by economic hardship.

~ Finnish National Board of Education

In addition, the Finnish National Board of Education also declares on its website:

The student assessment and evaluation of education and learning outcomes are encouraging and supportive by nature. The aim is to produce information that supports both schools and students to develop. National testing, school ranking lists and inspection systems do not exist.

And also:

The organisation of schoolwork and education is based on a conception of learning that focuses on students’ activity and interaction with the teacher, other students and the learning environment.

Despite the absence of high stakes examinations, student ranking or school league table (or ranking as they are known in Singapore), the Finns have been able to produce a world-class education system. As is already well-known Finnish students have done well in international educational surveys.

Even locally:

The general finding is that there are no considerable differences between major regions when measured in terms of pupils’ average performance, and that the situation becomes even more balanced when socioeconomic background factors describing schools’ operating environments are taken into account.

~ “Thematic approaches to equality and equity in basic education” by Jorma Kuusela, Finnish National Board of Education, Assessment of learning results, 6/2006

It is clear, therefore, even without ranking and streaming of students and its accompanying high stakes examinations focus and high stress levels on both teachers and students, the Finns have produced a very successful educational system. The Finns are clear that learning is not linked to student ranking. They know that learning can take place in a nurturing environment minus all the stress, anxiety and the demoralizing labeling that is attached to students who have not done well in high stakes examinations.

In contrast, Singapore is known for its reliance on student ranking and streaming and its main instrument for such purposes, the high stakes, national examinations carried out by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore and the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) in conjunction with the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) syndicate. Singapore’s leaders have long felt that the examination system is a bedrock of the Singapore educational system. The SEAB has also produced a book, “Examinations in Singapore: Change and Continuity 1891 – 2007″, that seemed to justify its reliance on examinations.

But the current Chief Executive of the SEAB, Tan Lay Choo, admitted:

At present, there is a heavy reliance on national examinations as a means for assessing learning. A healthy assessment climate should have a good balance of both assessment ‘of’ and assessment ‘for’ learning. I would like to see greater focus given to assessment ‘for’ learning in Singapore schools. As a system, we may not have fully tapped on the many opportunities that school-based assessment can offer to inform teaching and learning.

~ SEAB-ling, Issue No. 7, May 2008

It is indeed a very welcome thing to hear the SEAB Chief Executive talking about the need to do more assessment for learning. Yet, she added in the same newsletter:

Next, I would like to see greater international recognition of SEAB’s products and services, such as the Singapore International Primary School Examination and our consultation services on educational assessment. I hope that with the sound reputation of the Singapore brand of education, SEAB would be able to share our products and services with more countries so that educators and, ultimately, the children in these countries can also benefit from them.

This is strange and perhaps inconsistent with what she had said earlier about assessment and the need for greater assessment “for” learning. While assessment “of” and “for” learning are not always mutually exclusive, advocating for a high stakes examinations, like the International Primary School Leaving Examinations (iPSLE), for Singapore’s neighbors does sound like applying double standards. She has already admitted Singapore’s over reliance on national examinations yet she is pushing that Singapore’s neighbors should value the iPSLE more at a time when the SEAB is saying that Singapore should move away from such examinations! If the SEAB really believes that we in Singapore should move towards more assessment “for” learning than it should advocate the same for its clients from around the region.

Could it be then that talk of moving to a greater emphasis on assessment “for” learning is just sop for the world? Is the MOE and SEAB serious about it for Singapore or are they still stuck in the national examinations paradigm? Are they still reluctant to admit the folly of the current emphasis on national examinations? Or is it because the SEAB is only seriously interested in making money from our gullible neighbours? This is something that schools in the region around Singapore ought to seriously think about. Too many are emulating the “Singapore model”, not realising that Singapore is trying to discard that model (or at least seem to). Furthermore, it is not as if there is no alternative model to that of Singapore for schools in the region. The Finnish model is a world class model. Why is Singapore still reluctant to admit that its stressful (read an email from a mother comparing school in Singapore and the US here) model is outdated and smacks more of the assembly line model of school more suited for the late 19th Century?

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There was an interesting news report yesterday in the Straits Times (22 July 2009), entitled “Retool for a world after the recession”. The report was essentially the result of an interview with the Education Solutions Executive for IBM’s Global Education and Industry, Ms Patricia Sullivan.

In the report, she argues for a need for a change in mind sets especially in education. With the increasing emphasis on KBEs and the need for workers with “21st century skills”, the education system has to change to meet these demands. The education system must produce students who are “flexible, adaptable and proficient with information technology”. She warned that:

If an education system is not aligned with economic objectives and strategies of a region, country or state, then it’s going to lose its validity and certainly its value.”

I have stated on numerous occasions in this blog about the need for Singapore to change its education system and move away from the traditional emphasis on written high stakes examinations because such an approach does not help Singapore to produce the workers that it needs. In fact, I have also suggested that this current emphasis on traditional written examinations and accompanying reliance on indicators like TIMSS, is misleading and can lead us to being lulled into a false sense of complacency about the prowess of our content-emphasized education system.

The emphasis in a new education system will be on the learning of skills rather than content. It will be on real world learning rather than on participating in a giant Trivial Pursuit or “guess what is on the teacher’s mind” game.

Ms Sullivan believes it will not be about grades and the teacher’s role will be one of intervening only when the students go off track. In the interview, she challenged Singapore by saying:

The world is truly going to become a global education market…you want to export your education services and import students, and the only way that’s going to be possible is by finding new ways of delivering education in non-traditional, non-classroom approaches.”

This ties in also with what I have been writing about the way Singapore pushes itself as an educational hub in the region. Singapore is still taking advantage of its reputation as an education hub based on an already outmoded approach to what education is all about. I have described how many “educational consultants” from Singapore have simply adopted a “cut-and-paste” approach in their dealings with schools in the region. Little thought is given about what kind of education is relevant for this day and age. A “simple” transfer of the examinations-oriented system is usually their solution and modus operandi, never mind its relevance. This mind set is not only found among private educational consultants but also in the people in the civil service who deal with educational matters.

I have written about how in Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE), the emphasis is still on written examinations as the focus of learning and assessment. While there are some schools doing away with the traditional GCE O levels, the assumption is that only the top schools should do that because the students will do well in them anyway. What they don’t stop to consider is whether the O levels is good indicator of learning for all students in the first place. Those students not normally regarded as bright in Singapore may simply have other types of intelligences and habits of mind that the MOE simply doesn’t want to focus on but which Ms Sullivan is saying may be even more important today and in the future.

The MOE also persists with streaming despite all criticism. According to the Straits Times report Ms Sullivan was reported to be of the view that:

…more change is needed as the standardisation and structure of society along with continued streaming at a relatively early age may not translate well into the future. She sees technology enabling students to individualise their learning and progress at their own pace instead of being part of a cohort who methodically go through the same learning process.”

What she is essentially criticizing is also the very basic approach of our school system which is no different from that of factory assembly line system.

We see also the old paradigm in the thinking of Singapore’s attempt to be the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) syndicate of the East. Singapore has set up the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) . The SEAB is part of Singapore’s plan to be an educational hub. However, what it promotes is nothing visionary in the area of assessment. It sells the iPSLE to neighboring countries.

This is definitely not as Ms Sullivan that is “delivering education in non-traditional, non-classroom approaches.”

There is an interesting article in the Straits Times today, 1 July 2009, by Dr Lee Wei Ling, the Director of the National Neuroscience Institute, Singapore. She was giving her views on “herd mentality” and “free will”.

In her article, she gave the current measure of taking temperature to screen for the H1N1 flu virus as an example of a herd mentality. Her argument is that despite evidence to show that it has not worked well citing Japan as an example where such measures were taken and yet it has the second highest number of confirmed cases in Asia despite its efforts at temperature screening. She reminded us that even without a temperature, a person can be carrier of the virus and such people would think they are healthy when in fact they can be dangerous transmitters of the flu.

In the educational field, the clamor for international examinations like the IGCSE, iPSLE or IB has never been louder. This is especially true in the Southeast Asian region where Singapore’s neighbors have been envious of Singapore’s reputation for an excellent education system. Many have seen Singapore’s reputation as due to its known reliance on examinations from international examinations syndicate like UCLES or the CIE. Many schools among Singapore’s neighbors now want similar examinations because of the prestige that such examinations can give to them. They feel that if they have international examinations, then they can be become “good” too.

In this rush to get themselves accredited to international examinations, few actually ask if such high stakes examinations can do what they should be doing, which is, whether it can assess students learning well. The assumption is that these established international examination syndicates know what they are doing as they have been in the business for a long time. But do their clients stop to think what IS BEING assessed in such international examinations? What kind of learning is being assessed? Is the area of learning being assessed just a narrow spectrum of skills and abilities, and intelligence?

Many educational experts have decried the dependence on such examinations to assess learning. This is because there is so much learning to be assessed and the different kinds of learning cannot be assessed in a one-size-fits-all way, that is through largely written examinations. Yet schools are rushing to get into the high stakes international examinations bandwagon.

Like the temperature-taking measures for the H1N1 virus, high stakes examinations are a very ineffective way of measuring what it is supposed to measure. It doesn’t take into account too many aspects of assessment in learning. Worse, it is also like the same example cited by Lee, it is also dangerous. It is dangerous because those who do well in such examinations will think they are intelligent and those who don’t will think that they are not when in reality many of the former are just examinations-smart and the latter are not.

It is also dangerous because it doesn’t assess people for the skills and knowledge that is required for adult life. The economy for example gets conned into accepting people who are examinations-smart as good and suitable workers. The loud complaints of employers about the quality of workers they get from schools and universities tell us the real story.

Dr Lee also had this conclusion about “free will”. She said:

“…the option to make a decision unconstrained by any circumstance. In many situations we cannot expect total free will. But where decision-making is constrained by mere social convention, we do have the choice to ignore conventions. More importantly, when decision-making is influenced by herd mentality, we should consciously avoid following the herd and make decisions based on logic.

If we fail to do so, we risk making the wrong decisions, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.”

I feel her conclusion should also be useful warning for all schools in the region about adopting the herd mentality with regards to the adoption of international examinations. The adoption of international examinations is not a silver bullet or panacea. It can actually be a trojan virus in disguise and undermine much that education really stands for. Instead of education, this virus will change the programming to give you examination-preparedness instead.