The Straits Times today reported that Singapore’s Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, claimed that “nobody has suggested abolishing examinations” when he announced that the Ministry of Education (MOE) is finally undertaking a review of its high stakes examinations policy. That is very strange indeed. Readers of this blog know that I have been calling for the removal of high stakes examinations for quite some time (click this as just one example). A quick search on Google, using the search terms, “high stakes examinations in Singapore” will find at least two of my postings in the first page of the search result page. Do any variation of these terms on Google and you may even find up to three of my postings that criticize the use of high stakes examinations in Singapore. I am not highlighting this just to show how good my SEO ratings are. I am just merely pointing out that on the internet, you will find many complaints about the Singapore school high stakes examinations system and also calls for its removal. It is simply amazing that these are not seen by Singapore’s Minister of Education.

You may now wonder if the Minister of Education actually uses the Internet or even read, much less, consider views aired on the internet. This is the minister of the MOE that has been globally recognized and lauded for its massive MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE). This is also the same MOE that has been pushing for 21st century learning.

Minister for Education Heng Swee Keat was responding to a query from a Member of Parliament (MP) about the the need for a review of the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) as it is known to be a major factor in the high stress levels in Singapore’s schooling system. The MP also said that the high stakes examinations also adds “to the coffers of the tuition industry” which I have also posted about.

In response, the Minister said that the review should not be rushed. He also said:

“Examinations well done serve an important purpose… allowing teachers and parents to gauge the extent of (students’) learning.”

I think the key phrase here is “well done”? What is meant by “well done”? If the examinations only reflect only the kind of assessment of learning that high stakes (largely written) do, is it well done? If these examinations do well in allocating students to their “proper” places in the economy, can it be said to be “well done”?

He went on to say that Singapore has a rigorous system. I agree it does but “rigorous” at doing what? Testing shallow rote-learning and mechanical operations?

Minister for Education Heng Swee Keat also went on to justify the need for caution in the review by citing the failure of a curriculum reduction to reduce student stress levels in Japan. According to the Straits Times report he claimed that education standards fell significantly! I begin to wonder if he knows what he is talking about.

Is curriculum reduction the same as reviewing the need for high stakes examinations? The MOE in Singapore has been doing curriculum reduction for years. Ask any teacher in Singapore. It can be argued that despite that the stress levels has gone up over the years. Again ask any teacher in Singapore. Ask the students and parents too.

And what “education standards” was it that fell in Japan? How did they measure that? Vague pronouncements like this do not help but confuse the issue.

He also cited that the sudden changes in the Japanese education system had led to Japanese teachers and principals complaining that the text books are thicker than before. So therefore, sudden change leads to more stress. My response to this is that the changes are sudden because education ministries are historically slow to make changes. Can we really do this review slowly as we have already wasted so much time?

The MOE is no different. Despite policy proclamations to show it is being adaptive to changes, the MOE is a very conservative organization run and advised by many who themselves were the successful product of the old system. It is hard for leopards to change their spots. The Minister of Education not told of the need to review high stakes examinations by his own officials is evidence of their unchanging nature. This organizational inertia seems to be postponing necessary changes until it is very (too?) late. It may become necessary, therefore, to call for drastic sudden changes to keep abreast of developments in the world. So if there are drastic changes to be made, it is due to this organizational inertia and perhaps the cultural ethos in MOE where speaking up to criticize policy, is to put it mildly, “not encouraged”.

The Minister of Education was then reported to have asserted that “we have a high-quality, strong system”. Do we? Strong and high quality in what sense? I know we are good at management and getting students to mug and ace examinations.

But what does this all mean for our foreign observers who have been praising and even been trying to imitate our examinations system? I wrote some time ago about President Obama calling for America to emulate Singapore. America has now introduced high stakes examinations system. So who is following who now?

What does it mean also for countries in Southeast Asia like in Indonesia, Vietnam and even in mainland China and who has been rushing to get their students to sit for Singapore’s iPSLE, the international version of the PSLE? Aren’t they going to look silly?

“Test-oriented education’ refers to the factual existence in  our nation’s education of the tendency to simply prepare for tests, aim for high test scores, and blindly pursuing admission rates [to colleges or higher-level schools] while ignoring the the real needs of the student and social development. It pays attention to only a minority of the student population and neglects the majority; it emphasizes knowledge transmission but neglects moral, physical, aesthetic, and labor education, as well as the cultivation of applied abilities and psychological and emotional development; it relies on rote memorization, and mechanical drills as the primary approach, which makes learning uninteresting, hinders students from learning actively, prevents them from taking initiatives, and heavily burdens them with [an] excessive amount of course work; it uses test scores as the primary or only criterion to evaluate students, hurting their motivation and enthusiasm, squelching their creativity, and impedes their overall self-development. “Test-oriented education” violates the Education Law and Compulsory Education Law and deviates from our educational policy. Henceforth, we must take all effective measures to promote “quality education” and free elementary and secondary schools from “test-oriented education”. (Guojia Jiaowei [National Education Commission], 1997)

~Quoted from “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization” by Yong Zhao

Catching Up or Leading the Way (Click here to purchase)

In my view, the statement above packs a wallop. Even the Chinese have woken up that their “test-oriented education” (I call it “examinations-centered schooling”) is bad for the students and the country. And this is a country with a a very long tradition of imperial examinations and is still very much a socialist country.

That definition of “test-oriented education” as “the factual existence in  our nation’s education of the tendency to simply prepare for tests, aim for high test scores, and blindly pursuing admission rates” definitely describes Singapore’s schooling system even today. No matter what the claims of the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore. So Singapore is no different from China in this respect.

It also unequivocally condemned the test-preparation mind set. It also bravely acknowledges that it “ignores the real needs of the student”. Readers of my blog will know that I have been writing a lot about this, about what the students of today need to prepare them for the real world tomorrow. The statement from the National Education Commission is more brutal in its frankness than anything coming from the MOE. The MOE talks about making small changes most of the time because it is reluctant to admit that today the schooling system in Singapore is flawed fundamentally. Imagine how the teachers in Singapore will feel if it admits to this. Seems like a Communist country is more honest than a democratic one like Singapore. Moreover, it is coming from a country that has been able to put man in space. What about a country that has not, like Singapore.

It is interesting that if you read the statement, it well describes the Singapore system of schooling. Of course in Singapore, there are the elite schools that get to play with the “fun” and “exciting” stuff, like Obama’s daughters get in their elite school. But what about the rest of the citizens? Here again the statement above from the National Education Commission has hit it right on the nail when it said that its system has paid “attention to only a minority of the student population and neglects the majority.” The majority of the Singapore school population is regarded as “not as able” (and that is putting it mildly) as those in the elite schools. The latter gets the exciting stuff while the rest gets “the rote memorization, and mechanical drills as the primary approach” as mentioned above in the National Education Commission‘s report. The “test-oriented education” also “makes learning uninteresting, hinders students from learning actively, prevents them from taking initiatives”. This is from a Communist country where discipline and hard work in the face of traditional teacher-centered instruction. Simply incredible and radical if you think about this. It also shows how seriously aware they are of the shortcomings of their education system. In Singapore, we call it “meritocracy“.

The report also clearly spells out the effects of such a schooling system on the student population. Again, its conclusion is damning. It says that using “test scores as the primary or only criterion to evaluate students, hurting their motivation and enthusiasm, squelching their creativity, and impedes their overall self-development.” This is obvious but nobody in the MOE in Singapore wants to admit to this.

Let us also use that last line of the quote from the report  from the National Education Commission of China:

“…we must take all effective measures to promote “quality education” and free elementary and secondary schools from “test-oriented education”.

PS Prof. Yong Zhao’s book is a great read. Highly recommended. Arne Duncan should read it  too!

I have written a few posts warning my friends and readers in the countries around Singapore, like Indonesia and Thailand, not to blindly ape Singapore’s much vaunted education system. I have warned about looking at Singapore with rose-tinted glasses. I have argued that Singapore does not have an education system. What Singapore possess is a huge test prep system. Everything that is done in the test prep centers (they call them “schools” in Singapore) is geared towards preparing students to pass those high stakes examinations. I have also written about how foreign observers are eager to praise and copy the Singapore system. Even Barack Obama has mentioned how “well” Singapore’s “education” system is during his campaign trail.

Some readers may argue that there are schools that are skipping traditional examinations like the GCE O levels but they forget these are only for the elite top schools in Singapore. Why is this not the norm in Singapore? I have argued passionately that the examinations system is out of date and is one factor for the disconnect that affects many teenagers in schools in Singapore.

Yet, the Singapore system is being imitated by schools in the Southeast Asian region in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, and even as far away as China. Today, we see this trend being followed eagerly by Obama‘s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. To quote Gerald Bracey:

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants a longer school day, a longer school week, and a longer school year and national subject standards, which will inevitably lead to one national test. Duncan wants to institute merit pay, which is a euphemism for paying teachers to produce higher test scores. Such merit pay, combined with national academic standards and one national test, will inevitably continue to transform our public schools into test prep factories. Thus, more and more of the same old industrialist factory model of education. All we need to do to improve schools, says Duncan, is intensify the command-and-control model of education.

Do all these sound familiar to Singaporeans out there? Is it a surprise that Arne Duncan wants something akin to what Singapore has now? TIMSS has caused American bureaucrats and politicians to panic. They fear that the dragons of the East will leave America in the dust with the dragons’ consistent high rankings in TIMSS. But they forget that it is precisely America’s lack of centralized control that has allowed it to produce the world’s most creative talents in all fields that has powered America’s ascendancy in the world today.

Yet, even in Singapore, the Ministry of Education (MOE) is trying, probably reluctantly, to move away from the traditional examinations mode because it recognizes at least officially, that there is a need to change the schooling experience to reflect the 21st century needs. But the change is only for the elite schools. But as Bracey puts it:

“Shouldn’t every child have an education like the President’s daughters?”

Bracey was of course commenting on Arne Duncan’s reforms. He was highlighting a clear contradiction between what the Obama Administration intends for education for the rest of America, and what the President’s daughter receives. In Singapore, what the “elite” receives, is different from that of the lesser mortals too. The elite in Singapore, like Obama’s daughters, will get schools that are not factory-like in nature, boasting of enlightened approaches to education. The rest of America, like the rest of Singapore, will get the rags and the factory assembly line which is indicative of where the powers-that-be think such students should be heading for.

“The working, the working, just the working life.”

- “Factory” by Bruce Springsteen