DIFFERENCES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE SCORES OF NEIGHBOURHOODAND BRAND-NAME SCHOOLS

DIFFERENCES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE SCORES OF NEIGHBOURHOODAND BRAND-NAME SCHOOLS

2.

Mr Seah Kian Peng asked the Minister for Education in respect of the PSLE (a) whether there is a difference in the Chinese Language scores between neighbourhood schools and brand-name schools such as Anglo-Chinese schools, Methodist Girls School (Primary) and St Joseph's Institution Junior; (b) whether the Ministry can release data for the top 10 schools, for the past decade, in terms of (i) overall scores; (ii) Chinese Language grades; (iii) English Language grades, and compare them with their national averages; and (c) whether the Ministry has conducted surveys to show that students are being penalised for an equal weightage in Chinese.

Dr Ng Eng Hen: As a matter of policy, MOE does not publish the exam subject results of individual schools. What we can provide to the Members are results based on national trends.

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Among schools that have a high proportion of students (ie, at least 80%) from predominantly EL-speaking homes, 97% of the students scored 'A-star' to 'C' for their Chinese Language at the 2009 PSLE. This is marginally lower than the national cohort of 98%.

Mr Seah asked whether students were being penalised for an equal weightage in Chinese. Among students who were in the top 30% of the 2009 PSLE cohort based on their performance in English, Mathematics and Science, around one in 10 of these students were in the bottom 30% in terms of their Chinese Language score.

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