S’porean Mother Complains To Education Minister About ‘Devastating’ PSLE Maths Paper

Remember your PSLE days?

Those days of endless assessment books, stacks upon stacks of past year papers, and the voice of your mother yelling at you to score well constantly ringing in your ears?

Regardless of whether your PSLE results were good enough for you to be on the next Brand’s Essence of Chicken ad or bad enough that you had to be grounded for a month after, it all became memories of the past – even if you’d like for them to be erased from your mind and not cause further trauma.

The Primary School Leaving Examinations, or PSLE, has long been well-known for being one of the main causes of stress in every primary school kid and their parents’ life as it decides what secondary school one would end up in.

So when the all-important paper gets too tough to handle, it’s no surprise that tiger moms and dads will come out of their cave to tear apart the Ministry of Education for setting such difficult papers for their children.

Just take it from this mom, who wrote a very long open letter worthy of an English composition paper to the Ministry.

Why So Tough?!

Singaporean mom Serene Eng-Yeo took to Education Minister Ong Ye Kung’s Facebook page to leave some of her thoughts on this year’s PSLE Mathematics paper.

Well, maybe A LOT of her thoughts – you can read the full post here.

She claimed that children who sat for the paper, including her own son, were “defeated, crushed and utterly demoralised” by the Mathematics exam on 27 September, and demanded an explanation from the Ministry as to why standards were set so high for this particular year.

“He came out crushed, defeated, telling me that he is dumbfounded by every question in paper 2,” she wrote in regards to her son’s experience with the exam.

“What is the point of making the paper so tough? Can MOE explain the rationale behind this?”

Sounds quite dramatic, but oh well, there’s never a peaceful PSLE season.

Prelims Were “Humane”

Serene went on to share that her son was all smiles after he took the prelim papers set by the school and that he felt “empowered and encouraged that he could do the paper” for the very first time, but was crushed by the PSLE instead. Ouch.

She said that the school was “humane” in setting a paper that was reasonable and “gave hope and encouragement to the kids”, unlike the PSLE. Yet, she argued that if the school had known how crazy this year’s exam would turn out to be, they would have set prelim papers that could match up to the same standard.

It was good to have a challenging yet doable paper, she said, but it was still unfathomable how the paper was so unnecessarily difficult, containing questions that “even adults find it difficult and challenging to do.”

Yeah, sounds legit. I probably wouldn’t be able to face that paper even now after all the nightmares 12-year-old me had about it…

It Could Affect Mental Health

Citing instances where many Singaporean teenagers take their own lives due to academic stress, Serene reprimanded the Ministry of Education for previously stating that they were concerned about it when the tough papers that they are still setting could possibly contribute to the detriment of youths’ mental well-being.

According to the CNA article she referenced, “the number of suicides in Singapore rose 10 percent last year with suicides among boys aged 10 to 19 at a record high.”

“Do not blame them for taking their lives when they cannot see beyond academics because we have made PSLE to be a be all and end all exam for the 12-year-olds,” she added.

Serene also scoffed at the fact that no one cares about PSLE scores any longer when students grow up and go to work. Thankfully.

Questions, Anyone?

To further prove her point, Serene included screenshots of some questions included in the 2019 PSLE Mathematics exam.

Here are the questions if you’d like to try them, and your chance to redeem yourself now if you couldn’t have solved these questions all those years back:

Honestly, I’m starting to see her point now, because these questions are more challenging than my old brain remembers they are.

Maybe Terence Siow can solve them. He’s good in maths and has goody GPA.

Parent Support

Many enraged parents commented on the post to further criticise the Ministry and in support of Serene, thanked her for her boldness in writing directly to the Education Minister.

Of course, there were also a few who felt like this was an overreaction from an overprotective parent, and that tough questions in exams are inevitable and necessary for growth.

Some also argued that they themselves did not do well for their PSLE, yet still managed to do well in life after that.

Minister Ong Ye Kung has yet to respond to Serene, but we imagine it would be a very interesting conversation when he does.

It remains to be seen if the power of hundreds of angry parents can actually change how the PSLE is set.

Good luck anyway, kiddos!