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I’ve been asked by BlogTV, goodness knows why, to write a piece about the recent PSLE Math “fiasco”. Why I put fiasco in inverted commas is that this fiasco occurs every year and every year, parents get incensed. Granted it’s usually the next batch of parents who have kids nearing the exam taking age who look at the paper and panic.

Heck, my twins are two and I panicked, rapidly running their academic options through my mind. When I showed it to Packrat, his response was severe annoyance on both a personal and a professional level. One of our favourite experts on education is a British academic by the name of Ken Robinson. I first discovered him on Ted.com and was spell bound when he talked about how schools killed creativity and a wonderfully apt term that he discusses called “academic inflation”.

And academic inflation is something that Singapore is so severely suffering from. When I was 12 and taking the exam, I was extremely stressed about the Math paper. Even at that point, the Math paper was difficult. I distinctly remember trying to explain my way out of the problem rather than present a working for it because I couldn’t figure out how to present it mathematically. Even at 12, I was more comfortable using words than numbers. Anyway, it was difficult then. And more than 20 years on, it’s even worse. It’s harder than ever. Packrat swears that if this continues and is worse (which I suspect it will because it’s just an upward spiral) when the twins hit 12, we’re outta here. Call us quitters if you will but we value ours and our children’s sanity more than a label that the government brands us with.

I took days to do it. I finally figured it out with the help of a 13 year-old, a PSLE veteran. When I asked her how she figured out how to do this last year, she said that she that she did sums everyday and was tutored everyday in Math because her mother wanted her to score a distinction and score it she did. And that’s the problem isn’t it? Everyone’s mom and their dog wants them to score distinctions in Math, or Science or Language or Moral Education for that matter. And because that’s du jour, there becomes a real need to separate the ones who truly can from the ones who can because they’ve been drilled to be able to and spend every waking hour at the Learning Lab or any of the other juvenile greenhouses that have flourished all over the island. Hence, the need for the spiralling out-of-control difficulty. But if this isn’t academic inflation, I don’t know what is. Being good isn’t enough and that’s just plain ridiculous. And it’s just one of the MANY things wrong with our system and needs to be fixed.

We are a nation of complainers and we’re good at kicking up a fuss. So that’s what we do. Do we need to change? Or as Bob the Builder (I am watching far too much kid television!) asks, Can we fix it? But oh! Why would we do that? Why fix something that gets us clever kids? Oh, never mind if a truck load of them fall by the way side, it’s just natural elimination and we are after all a system that is built on meritocracy so you need merit and if you don’t have it, well, you don’t deserve to be here.

Cruel? Yes. Should the kids, including mine suck it up and just get through it? Well, I think it will do them good and the truth is, I think my twins would get through the system fine. They’ll survive, children always do. Will we, as parents survive? Now, that’s a different matter. And that’s what I worry about. I don’t want to end up being a parent that whips the child because he only got 98 when he could have gotten full marks. As a teacher, I see too many of those parents around me and I see how bad it is for the child. At the end of the day, I think that scares me more than my children having to figure out how many sweets Ken started off with.

Ondine is taking a break from moulding young minds to mould the young minds of her two little munchlets. When she has time and energy, she blogs. She has moved on to be a Warhammer widow and despises the game with every fibre in her body. Fantasises about setting the EA headquarters on fire. But usually mild-mannered and does not usually blog about serious things.

I am a mother of two girls. My first daughter went through PSLE two years ago and it’s my second daughter’s turn this year.  Being a parent who had gone through two years of PSLE where the Math paper was said to be difficult, I could empathise with those parents who showed anxiety and concern over this year’s Math questions.

As a parent, an ex teacher and a tutor, I view PSLE in different perspectives. I beg to differ on Clarice Sim’s blog when she mentioned that students came out crying after the Maths exam. These are 12 year old kids we are talking about. It is not so much of not being able to face failure or feeling guilty but more of being frustrated for not being able to do their utmost best. At that point of time, obviously and definitely they will feel demoralise after putting in a lot of effort preparing for PSLE. Even we as adults do feel the same way when things do not go our way, what more a 12-year-old child!

I have no idea how the overall Math paper was. Based on the grouses by my students and news information plus the questions that I managed to get from the media or my daughter, I must say that the questions were quite tough for an average 12-year old. My daughter came home and wrote down some of the difficult Math questions as best as she could remember (a few questions were similar to those that have appeared on media). Students are supposed to finish each question (Section C: Problem Sums) under 10 minutes, which they were not able to it. Maybe adults will also find difficulty doing the sums under 10 minutes, what more a 12-year-old.

I supposed SEAB has its own set of objectives when setting the questions. One of the reasons probably is to identify the cream of the crop. However, the cream of the crop may only constitute about 10% of the cohort and the majority of the students are average while a handful is below average. I believe, as an ex teacher, they should set a certain number of difficult questions for the high flyers. However, even my A* student complained the paper being too tough. So who or what is at fault here? The system, the setters in SEAB, parents, teachers or students?

Wartik Hassan is a mother of 2 girls, aged 14 and 12 years. A former school teacher and tutor with about 15 years of teaching experience. She is now working in CRPP (Centre for Research of Pedagogy & Practices) at NIE doing educational research work. Currently pursuing a degree in English Lang in Unisim.