The Ministry of Education is considering the possibility of removing examination for Primary 1 students in hope of extending learning beyond the borders of tests. In replacement of the examinations, the school will only give small quizzes to measure the student's understanding of the topic.
I agree to a certain extent. Students are often pushed hard to produce good grades, even from a young age. To do this teachers will give quite a lot of homework and assignments to prepare them adequately for the examination. Since Singaporean parents do not want to lose out to other children, they literally almost bury their own children in mountains of test papers and assessment books to ensure academic excellence. This will put unnecessary stress on the poor young students and develop a dread for examinations.
Students will also start to think that learning is all about getting good marks and being top of the class, which is not true. Learning is about understanding how the world works and gaining knowledge. But because all their teachers and parents highlight the importance of doing well in examinations for the sake of their future, the children tend to get the wrong impression.
However, there are also some disadvantages to this plan. First of all, what is the point of cancelling the examinations only for P1? You let the children enjoy one year of stress-free learning when they can enjoy their lessons, and suddenly in the second year BAM! EXAMS! Then the children will still have to go through everything as mentioned before. The pain is simply pushed back to a later date. If they want to go through with the plan, then make it longer. Maybe till P4, in the upper levels. That would certainly be more effective than just one pathetic year.
And of course, there will definitely be cases when the children are not motivated to learn since it is not examinable and there are no "Fail" papers to bring home. But I believe that would be quite a small handful since learning is enjoyable. Or is it?
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