STATISTICS ON FAILURES ON MOTHER TONGUE LANGUAGES

Mr Gerard Ee asked the Minister for Education if his Ministry will give the statistics of students failing in the second language in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and "O" level examination.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: In the PSLE, the grades awarded are the following: A*, A, B, C, D, E, and Ungraded which is considered the Failed grade. The percentages of pupils failing Mother-Tongue Languages in PSLE are very small. In the 1999 PSLE, the numbers and percentages of pupils who failed, that is, did not achieve a Grade E or better, in Chinese and Malay Language were 20 (0.07%) and 2 (0.03%) respectively. There was no failure in Tamil Language.

In the GCE 'O' level examination, the grades awarded are A1, A2, B3, B4, C5, C6, D7, E8 and F9. In the 1998 GCE `O' level examination, the percentages of school candidates who failed, that is, getting F9, were 2.1% for CL, 2.2% for ML and 2.1% for TL. These represent 532 of CL students, 118 of ML students and 24 TL students.