EDUCATIONAL STREAMING (Results in PSLE)

Mr Liew Kok Pun asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education whether educational streaming has brought about an improvement in the performance of pupils in the Normal and Extended streams at the Primary School Leaving Examinations over the past few years.

The Minister of State of Education (Dr Tay Eng Soon) (for the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, last year the first batch of pupils who were streamed into the Normal stream in 1980 sat for the Primary School Leaving Examination. Their pass rate was 93.6%. However, if retained pupils from previous batches are included, the overall PSLE pass rate in 1982 was 87.3%. This year, the second batch of Normal stream pupils achieved a pass rate of 93% at PSLE. If those in the first Extended stream batch and retained pupils from previous batches are included, the overall pass rate is 87%. The overall pass rate for the last batch of pupils in 1981 who were not affected by streaming was 81.7%. Thus, the overall improvement has been about 6%.

However, the major impact to be expected of streaming is the reduction of the dropout rate. As at October 1983, a total of 2,080 pupils dropped out of the primary schools. In contrast, the number of dropouts in 1978, the year before streaming was introduced, was 8,900. The reduction is more than four-fold. With streaming, the weaker pupils are given a chance to complete their schooling, either in the Extended or the Monolingual streams, whereas previously many were retained and forced to drop out when they became overaged.