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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The Abilene Paradox

If we are to ask teachers and parents about our (Singapore) education system, we will find almost unanimous agreement that the system is very stressful for all concerned. They will lament about the over-emphasis on examinations, the heavy workload on the students while the teachers will moan about being buried under the marking of the students’ work. Parents complain about the need for private tuition for their children, not to mention the streaming and labeling of of students. Yet, we find this strange agreement to somehow continue with this system of ours. This reminds me of the Abilene Paradox (see video excerpt here).

The Abilene Paradox was introduced by management guru, Jerry B. Harvey in his book, The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management (left). From an anecdote from this book he describes the paradox as the following:

“On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.”

Few dare to say no to our current system. Yet few think that many of the characteristic results of the system is desireable. But we still go along with it and just grin and bear with it. Either it is because we are so afraid of going against the official view or we somehow think that the others think it is great too. After all, we have teams from all over the world to study our educational system. So they must think it is good. So it must be good. Is it? Or are we on the road to Abilene where education is concerned?

By the way, I highly recommend the book. It is not only that the subject is interesting but the book is hilarious. It had me laughing all the way.

Today’s Mailbag in the Life section of the Straits Times presents a mixed bag of views written by Singapore parents about the recent preliminary recommendations made by the Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee. However, in my view all of them except one, sidestepped the real issue of the usefulness of written examinations or tests as a gauge of meaningful learning.

The first writer obviously thinks that the way to go around the examinations is through being “diligent” and “consistent”. It is interesting she was angry at the Straits Times Money editor, Ignatius Low, who argued in favor of examinations perhaps because he had found a way of doing well in the examinations through cramming! If anyone can do well in examinations by cramming, and let us face it that this does happen regularly, what value is the examination in terms of real learning? If the writer argues that examinations teaches diligence and consistency, then what is so bad about cramming as it can be argued that it is learning how to tackle a problem (the examinations) in a smart and efficient way? The point here is that both have something in common about the examinations. The examinations heavy syllabi itself don’t seem teach students anything of real value intellectually. The supposed good values of the examinations is in the building of character which I am certain can be done in some other way. They can be learned without examinations.

The lack of meaningful intellectual learning is further raised by another parent, again perhaps unconsciously. She wrote:

“Learning is a lifelong process. It is not for exams. A person who does well is not necessarily smarter than the one who does not.

How often have we seen children keeping away their textbooks once the exams are over? They think they do not have to learn anymore.”

While one may argue that children are not the best judges of things, this is an example where children have realized the meaninglessness of examinations. They are the ones who go through it and the accompanying stress that comes with it. They know deep down all of the examinations is almost for nothing really meaningful in terms of their intellectual development.

The next writer who is a parent of three boys. wrote about how her second son almost had a mental breakdown when he was going to sit for the PSLE “because of all the worksheets and remedial classes his school insisted on.” She had to tell his teacher and school principal to “back off”. This is one parent who dares go against the grain. Many Singapore parents would have just swallowed the same from their children’s school.

A third parent is against the scrapping of the examinations for Primary 1 and 2 pupils as recommended by PERI. She said:

“Kids are highly adaptable and having exams early gives them an idea of what the experience is about. Parents can also use the exams during the first two years of primary school as a testing ground and guide them in preparing for more important exams in the future.”

Here is a parent saying that the purpose of having examinations is so that students know how to take examinations! This shows how the Singapore school system which is examination-dependent has become a farce! It is not about learning. It is about the examinations only!

Another parent, wrote about how she used to do “intensive training” for her children only when the exams came around but has had to change her intensive training routine into a year round thing when “small tests” became the norm in Singapore schools.

Lastly, still another parent argued for the retention of the examinations only because the “small tests” or “topical tests” as has been recommended by PERI, “can be draining or stressful.” She went on to say that there is “no difference in stress levels when it comes to holding examinations or small tests.” She was the only one who seemed to have considered alternative modes of assessment but in her view these alternative modes, like project work, “is subjective” and “not an objective and transparent system of assessment.”

A careful reading of these letters show that none of them to argue for the need for high stakes examinations for what they were purported to be for in the first place, which is they are tests of the intellectual knowledge and skills that the students have learned in school. We would expect that since the issue is examinations this ought to be the first thing addressed yet while they quibble over small or big written tests none seems to have a view of whether the examinatiuons really test anything worthwhile. Even PERI falls into the same mindset. The reason given by PERI for having or not having examinations is because of the stress levels not because whether such written tests really offer any valuable assessment of any meaningful learning taking place. The real issue is, therefore, sidestepped. Again as I have stated in my last post, this is not a surprise since the PERI has largely consulted the same people who have perpetuated the exam culture in Singapore.