Social mobility: Examine elite PSLE band
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Mar 9, 2011 - ST Forum
EDUCATION Minister Ng Eng Hen, in illustrating how education remains a great social leveller, cited a statistic which showed that half the pupils in the bottom third of our socio-economic bracket obtained scores that placed them in the top two-thirds of their PSLE cohort ('School system 'still best way to move up''; yesterday).
The statistic does not reflect what is an important goal of social mobility for parents: achieving desired mobility.
To show desired mobility, the Government should offer a socio-economic comparison of the pupils in the top 5 per cent of every PSLE cohort; that is, the performing elite. This elite band are pupils who qualify for the cream of secondary schools such as Raffles Institution, Hwa Chong Institution and Dunman High.
A related statistic which should be made available to the public is how many of these elite pupils originated from prestigious schools such as Raffles Girls' Primary and Nanyang Primary in the Bukit Timah area.
A third relevant statistic which will offer a more complete picture of social mobility: Find out how many parents of pupils in the Primary School Leaving Examination's top 5 per cent spend hundreds of dollars each month to ensure that their children gain entry into the top secondary schools.
Surveys can be carried out to find out how much each family spends on supplementary lessons for music, arts, dance and mother tongue.
We should also find out how much parents spend to send their children for pupil exchanges to beef up their co-curricular activities, which offer them an alternative avenue into elite schools via the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme.
My view is that our otherwise excellent school system favours wealthier families.
To overcome the bias, we should do away with primary affiliation admission offered by some secondary schools so that schools level the same PSLE cut-off points for all.
The DSA should be tweaked to level the playing field. Pupils admitted through DSA must meet the schools' PSLE cut-off points, which they need not currently.
Finally, consider regulating the tuition industry to provide fair access for all.
Cheong Tuck Kuan
