The Ministry of Education, is abolishing the banding of secondary schools by academic results and will also remove the Masterplan of Awards (MoA) reducing the number of awards. As a replacement the MOE is planning to put emphasis on recognizing the best practices by schools in delivering well-rounded education.
The whole transformation is to bring in the quality education, with more learners –centered approach and value-driven education.
Below are the major key notes from Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, speech given to educators on Education Ministry’s Work Plan Seminar:
- For Students: the new policy will help to reduce stress to zero, this means less tuition, no unrealistic exams and less homework.
- For Schools: the ministry will stop excessive focus on grades, simplify the school assessment, funding school better based on school needs and to spend $55 million to help school find their niches.
- For Teachers: To motivate the teachers, the ministry will review appraisal system and scale up mentor scheme for the new teachers.
- For Parents: Parents and teacher share the same goal, to bring out the best in children. A site fully committed to parents providing parenting tips will also be launched.
For now, the new education system is under trail and run phase, but let’s look at some of the main points linked with the new change in syllabus plan by MOE.
1. The new scheme will help students, as this will not overload students with homework as too much homework make kids to lose interest.
2. Monetary help to schools, so that they can develop their niche programmes like sports, performing arts or even a specialized fields such as environmental education.
3. The emphasize will be given more on the quality of teachers , rather than class size.
4. Developing student’s knowledge and skills in the academic area will be an important core task for schools.
Although with the drastic change in pedagogical system, the schools will face complexity in forming the action plan and teachers will be more reluctant towards the change, but if the change is bringing good for the young generation, it must be welcomed. The whole idea behind this is to involve parents and teachers together to bring a better change for the children of Singapore.