10 Facts About The Abolition of Streaming in Sec Sch You’ve Gotta Know About

For the longest time, the all-important question has remained.

Should students continue to be classified into Express, Normal Academic and Normal Technical streams?

Granted, while the streams do serve as a somewhat subservient gauge of academic abilities, they’re not without their stigmas. A boy who’s sorted into the Normal Technical stream could, for instance, face this thought:

“Is this all I can amount to?”

In case you don’t see it, that notion’s hardly ideal for one’s educational journey, regardless of how you angle it. For honestly speaking, life’s hard enough without the extra rocks obstructing your learning journey.

But that’s all set to change

For the parliament has just dropped a bombshell on us all:

The standard streaming systems that exist in secondary schools are set to be scrapped by 2024.

Believe me, I was shocked too. But hey, save your surprise for later because it’s time for Goody Feed’s wholesale 10 Facts About The Abolition Of Streams in Sec Sch You’ve Gotta Know About.

And by the way, here’s a trick question: would aliens land on Yishun first or would the end of streaming occur first?

#justcurious

1. Announcement

According to Channel News Asia, the announcement was made in Parliament today (5 March), by none other than your friendly Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung.

In his speech, Mr Ong expressed that it’s time for a change, and that streaming in secondary schools will be officially scrapped by 2024.

So, what’s the change?

2. Subject-based banding

By 2024, subject-based banding will officially take over the pedestal, with the classic O Level and N-Level examinations set to merge into one common national examination.

(No, it’s not called NO-Level although N+O = NO)

Students will attain a single national certification which reflects the level at which each subject is taken, with the new national examination and certification framework taking effect when the 2024 Secondary 1 cohort reaches Secondary 4.

The new certificate will be co-branded by Singapore and Cambridge.

3. How will it work exactly?

Under the new system, students will take on subjects at different levels depending on their abilities.

Upon entering Secondary 1, students will adopt a combination of subjects at three different levels (depending on their PSLE scores):

• General 1
• General 2
• General 3

These three levels are mapped from the current streaming classes.

• General 1 – Normal Technical Stream
• General 2 – Normal Academic Stream
• General 3 – Express Stream

I can see your ears perking up, ol’ JC students, and your gut instincts aren’t wrong. The new system’s set to emulate the standards set by Junior Colleges (subjects at H1, H2 and H3 levels) and Primary Schools (Standard or Foundation level).

4. Current schedule

At present time, around 25 schools are set to implement subject-based banding from next year onwards (2020). Thereafter, more schools will join in, with 2024 being the expected year for all phases to complete.

Of course, netizens are wondering: why not just implement it in all schools come 2020?

Well, you think change clothes ah? This one is change system leh.

5. Why the change though?

Speaking during his ministry’s Committee of Supply debate, Mr Ong said that streaming (which was actually implemented more than three decades ago) was originally created for a single purpose:

To reduce school attrition (dropout) rates.

And it has certainly worked, seeing how rates have decreased from about a third of every cohort to less than 1 per cent currently.

6. Well if that worked… why the change? 

Well, despite the obvious positivities streaming classes provided, there are downsides that are pretty significant in nature too.

“In its original form, streaming assumed that students needed a certain pace of learning in all their subjects, whereas many students, in fact, have uneven strengths across different subjects,” he said.

“More importantly, entering a stream that is considered ‘lower’ can carry a certain stigma or be self-limiting…Students can develop a mindset where they tell themselves, ‘I am only a Normal stream student, so this is as good as I can be.’ It becomes self-fulfilling.”

For your info, self-fulfilling means this: if you think of something, that something would occur. So if you think you can only run your 2.4 km run in 20 minutes, then you’ll always clock 20 minutes for your 2.4 km run even if you can run faster.

It certainly didn’t hurt that various MPs have raised the issue in previous years as well, something Mr Ong took note of.

7. Are PSLE results sufficient to determine a student’s subject proficiency?

Because let’s face it. Being a student who’s absolutely atrocious in Science, I made it a point to mug extra hug for the subject in my PSLE. As a result, I attained a pretty measurable result, but does that mean that I’m actually adept at Science?

No.

But it seems that Mr Ong has taken that aspect into consideration.

“As it may be difficult to ascertain the level suitable for students using just their PSLE results, MOE and schools will develop guidelines and assessment mechanisms, including using Secondary 1 year-end examinations,” he added.

8. Any complications?

While streaming has always been a debatable topic, one should not forget that in the end, it does cater to a student’s academic ability as best as it can. And to that end, one can’t help but wonder;

“Is this really more beneficial for academically weaker students? Can they actually cope?”

If you’re a concerned parent with the aforementioned mindset, let me just say two words:

“No need to worry.”

According to MOE, around 60% of Secondary 1 students in the Normal (Technical) stream and 40 per cent of students in the Normal (Academic) stream took subjects at a higher level. And for the record, the results of those students show that Normal and Express students perform comparably in the O-Level exams, with 25 per cent of Sec 4 Normal (Academic) students who took O-Level English getting an A1 or A2, and Express students achieving a percentage of just 24 per cent.

“The Normal stream students have held their own, and our surveys also showed that students, parents and teachers overwhelmingly welcome it,” Mr Ong said.

“We are now ready to take a further, major move.”

9. A new opportunity for schools

While this piece of news might be most viable to Secondary School students and their parents, Mr Ong also pointed out that schools could just get additional opportunities to reshape the social environment.

Citing examples such as Boon Lay Secondary School and Edgefield Secondary, each of whom organises their classes by Co-Curricular Activities and inclusion of all three streams respectively, he expressed that schools can now think up new ways to benefit their students.

“The pioneering practices such as in Boon Lay and Edgefield will become the norm,” he said.

“With full SBB implemented, form classes reorganised across the board and a common secondary education certificate, we would have effectively merged Express, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) streams into a single course,” he added. “The Express, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) streams, together with their labels, will, therefore, be phased out.

“So from three education streams, we will now have ‘one secondary education, many subject bands’,” he said.

“We will no longer have fishes swimming down three separate streams, but one broad river, with each fish negotiating its own journey.”

10. The MOE will release further details

If you’re like me, you would probably have a few seeds of doubt in your mind. I know I have one:

Seeing how students get into their choice secondary schools by form of PSLE aggregate scores, does this mean that schools no longer accept based on differing marks for the respective streams, but one, single mark?

What subjects are we talking about here? Is there a subject known as Instagram?

Can a student in General 1 get into JC if he or she performs well?

To that end, I’m still not quite clear yet. But thankfully, it has been expressed that MOE will release further details as time passes by.

In the meantime, why not watch the actual video yourself? It might serve to add some additional info to your disposal.