Streaming in the Singapore Education System
Zery Chan
Ethan Pang
Wei Yongxi
Michael Sung
The History of Streaming
Streaming was first introduced to Singapore in 1979 by the Education Study Team lead by Dr Goh Keng Swee in “Report on the Ministry of Education 1978”, also known as “The Goh Report”. The primary purpose of the report was to eliminate “educational waste” in Singapore, specifically referring to four cases, namely: “failure to achieve the expected standards, premature school leaving, repetition of grades, and unemployable school leavers”. The main cause of those problems was considered to be the Language Policy of the Government, where by every student had to study two languages, English and their mother tongue. Back in 1979, 40% of the Primary students failed to graduate into Secondary school at the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE). The Goh Report specifically mentioned its concern for many Chinese students as most of them spoke a dialect at home but were required to take Mandarin as a mother tongue. In the end it became a practical problem affecting the Nation Defense as there were entire platoons known as the “Hokkien Platoons” where the soldiers could not understand any orders given by the officers. It was under such conditions that the idea of Streaming was introduced.
The solution devised by the team of engineers was to identify the academically weaker students early and give them less extensive and difficult courses compared to their peers. By that time, streaming was already existent in Secondary schools, but Dr Goh’s idea was to bring the process forward to the end of Primary 3 (aged 9) and forced them through a series of standardized tests and examinations. At the time, it was deemed that “talent” was indivisible and if a person had to be good at “everything” or “nothing”. Those who were not able to make the Normal Stream in Primary 3 would be streamed into either the Extended Stream where they take two extra years to complete Primary Education due to their slow pace of learning, or into the Monolingual Stream where they wouldn’t even be able to apply for Secondary school. This Policy only loosened up in 1992, where students were streamed at Primary 4 instead of Primary 3 and all students had a chance to apply for Secondary Education.
Concept and Analysis
As mentioned above, the main concept that caused Streaming to occur was the idea to group students according to their academic strengths and weaknesses, in order for them to learn better at their own pace. When the students are classified together by their academic abilities, they are more likely to move at a similar pace and therefore minimize “educational waste”.
Streaming does bring benefits. Some of the existing analysis can be summed up as follows:
Ø Increase in pace of learning: students with similar abilities are grouped together as a class or learning group. Thus, it helps increase the pace of learning as the students who are able to grasp concepts quicker are able to move on at a faster pace and speed up their learning process. As for the students who are slower learners, they are able to take their time to digest and understand the concepts better and firmer before moving on.
Ø Convenient for teaching: with students of similar abilities in the same class, it makes the job of a teacher much easier. In an ordinary class where the gap between students is large, the teacher has to pay an equal amount of attention to every student to make sure they are able to keep up with the rest of the class. However, in a homogeneous classroom, the teacher can concentrate on teaching the students at the pace of that particular class, thus help them pick up lessons faster than otherwise.
Ø Boosts self-confidence of students: in a heterogeneous classroom, the academically weaker students may feel depressed and unconfident due to the presence of the more intelligent students who always top the class in tests. But in a classroom where everyone has similar abilities, the students will be more motivated to study hard as they feel that they actually have a chance to become the top student.
Ø Students can be challenged: the more gifted students can work through the syllabus quicker and can be challenged with more advanced materials if they are grouped with individuals who are equally talented, while they may not get such a chance in a mixed classroom. Therefore the gifted students can be motivated throughout the year and not lose momentum while waiting for other students to catch up.
However, many also criticize streaming due to the following reasons:
Ø Feeling of segregation: being classified into one of the lower streams may be quite difficult for some of the young students to accept, and may cause emotional issues among students and arguments between streams. It may also cause the students who were streamed into the better classes to look down on the lower streams and make them feel superior and proud, thus segregate one stream from another.
Ø Method of streaming: many may argue that classifying students based on their abilities to do well in standardized tests and examinations is not fair for those talented in other fields, and it is indeed true. Currently, we have not been able to come up with a method that divides students based on their talents in all areas fairly. Standardized tests may not truly reflect the learning ability of a student, and some students could be streamed into the wrong classes.
Ø Students uncomfortable with incorrect streams: for more intelligent students who are streamed into the lower streams, they may only work to the level of the stream they are in even though they are able to go beyond that, thus waste their talent and time. Students who get streamed into higher streams may find themselves unable to keep up with the rest of the group and become very stressful.
Kiasu!
Streaming was in fact one of the direct causes to the drastic increase in private tutoring courses. When Dr. Goh and his Engineering Team first introduced streaming, they had assumed that everyone would accept it with complete obedience, even for those who were streamed downwards. But that did not turn out to be the case. Dr. Goh was furious to discover that the introduction of streaming had driven everyone including the school, children and their parents to increase the academic standard of the students, thus defeating the purpose of the streaming system. Singaporean parents were and still are very sensitive to changes in the education system that may affect the social and financial opportunities that their children will get. Many parents successfully appealed for their children to move into one of the higher streams. However, in order to justify their decisions, they had to make sure that their children did well enough to deserve to stay in the stream. Thus, it led to a terrific increase in the number of private tutors. Rumors said that teachers even told students that “if you don’t understand what I am teaching, go home and let your private tutors teach you.” Even today, it is unusual to find University students who do not go to private tuition.
In the early 1990s, a huge underground market had developed in exam papers secretly taken from the top schools and sold with correct answers. This way, the parents can make their children work even without the help of private tutors. Even today, such papers can be easily found in some stalls in hawker centers or shopping centers. The black market covered all levels, all the way down to Primary 1.
The problems faced by streaming now
Inequality
The problem with streaming and setting is that the achievement levels of students in different classes - unequal to begin with - become even more and more unequal over time. These growing inequalities do not merely reflect students’ different starting points, they also relate to studentsí different experiences in high- and low-level classes. This finding has emerged from many studies, mostly in the US but also in the UK and elsewhere. One of the most important sources of evidence for the impact of setting on achievement inequality is the National Child Development Survey (NCDS), which was collected on 1958 British cohort over 20 years. Using NCDS data from England and Wales, Kerckhoff (1986) showed convincingly that students assigned to selective schools and classes increased their achievement more than similar students who enrolled in comprehensive schools and mixed-ability classes, while students in low-level schools and classes fell further and further behind.
Reasons for inequality
A major reason is that classroom instructional conditions tend to differ across sets and streams. Students in higher streams take more academic courses, and particularly more advanced academic courses. More experienced, qualified, and better prepared teachers are commonly assigned to higher sets, where they cover more challenging material at a faster pace. Low-level classes are more often afflicted with interruptions and student misbehaviour, while teachers emphasise seatwork instead of oral interaction with students (Gamoran, 2000). Studies of English classes in US secondary-schools, for example, revealed that much of the growing inequality of student performance between ability groups (sets) was related to two sorts of classroom differences: more misbehaviour that had negative consequences for achievement in low-level classes; and more discussion and open-ended questions about academic content, with positive consequences in high-level classes
Inaccurate judging of students abilities
In the singapore education system, one of the “major” streaming takes place between primary school and secondary school. At the end of Primary six, student are required to sit for a major exam known familiarly as PSLE. This test basically determines the secondary school one goes. Hence, the PSLE can be often seen as the test that will decide one’s fate. Same goes other major tests, such as the A levels and the O levels, which are also viewed as importantly as the PSLE - tests that will determines one’s fate. There is a common pattern observed, that is the fact that one’s ability is often judged according to one major test; this determines the streams they go into, the learning environment they get. However, some fail to realise this way of “streaming” is inaccurate and sometimes can be unfair. For example, some students might maintain a consistently good performance in “smaller tests” and have good school conduct grades, but when it comes to the big tests, they fail to perform. This might be due to too much stress or the fact that they are simply too nervous. On the other hand, there might be students who do badly for the “smaller tests”, who have poor school conducts, but when it comes to the bigger test, they outperform and outshine the others. And by the end of the day, it is these students that who score better in big tests that undeservingly get into better streams. There is hence generally this sense of unfairness. This major test also cannot be used to confirm the students talents, what if some students have true talents but did not do well for that major test?
Ultimately, he/she will still go to a normal stream or a lower stream. Therefore his/her talent is not fully make used of and developed, which is a pity. In conclusion, streaming cannot be based on the results of students throught ONE major test.
How to improve on streaming?
Improve accuracy
Firstly, instead of only having ONE examination to determine the streams one goes to, the streaming system should reconsider the option of taking more than one test results. For example, they can either take the results of the “small tests” in order to calculate the average marks or have one major test each term, each test being equal in their weightage. This will therefore ensure a more accurate and a more reliable streaming system.
Character
The students can also be judged according to their character and their morality. For example, those students with good conduct grades can be reconsidered to be put into better streams. The benefits of doing so varies, as that student will be able to influence those in the higher stream with good values. The students with good academic results can in turn help those with good values academically. Hence, both parties will benefit through this single alteration of the streaming system.
Teachers
The teachers provided for each stream should be equal in standards. This is mainly to promote equality and to change the common mindset of people. Most people think that higher streams generally have better teachers. However, by providing teachers of same standards, this issue will no longer be raised.
Acknowledgements:
https://uoitonlinetech.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/pros-and-cons-of-grouping-students-by-ability/
http://www.ehow.com/info_8481374_advantages-disadvantages-ability-grouping.html
BarrSk_extract.pdf
http://www.ces.ed.ac.uk/PDF%20Files/Brief025.pdf