Ms Gan Siow Huang: In line with the Government's key priority of sustaining social mobility and mitigating inequality, MOE monitors the education progress of students from all income brackets across the key life stages. Similar to other countries, we have observed a correlation between socio-economic status and educational outcomes. Nonetheless, in some areas, the gaps have narrowed over time – for instance, among students from lower socio-economic status backgrounds, nine in 10 students progress to post-secondary education today, compared to five in 10 around two decades earlier.
On the hon Member's second question on improving confidence in our education system, I think parents generally believe that our schools are providing quality education to our students. But what I think is happening, at the same time, is the notion of competition, of getting into good schools and good courses, and it is perhaps undervaluing the unique talents and interests of individual students. And I think that is something that we want to continue to work on and we seek the support of parents and the community in this.
Mr Speaker: Mr Liang Eng Hwa.
Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang): Sir, last month on the first day of school for Primary 1 students, it was 2 January, I was outside a primary school at my constituency and got to meet some parents there. As I was chatting with some of the parents, I saw a couple distributing flyers around us and I was curious to find out what they were distributing. And I soon found out that they are distributing tuition flyers.
I was very troubled with that and I offered my views to the couple who were distributing the tuition flyers and said that they should not be doing this on the first day of school for Primary 1 students. We do not want to create such unnecessary competition and stresses to our parents and the students on the first day for Primary 1 students. I told them that, perhaps later, if the students do have some weaker subjects and areas they need to improve on, well, perhaps they may need some tuition, but I still believe the school is capable of helping the weaker students. The couple left after I said all those things.
Can I ask the Minister of State whether there are any standing instructions or would MOE come out with some standing instructions to advise tuition centres not to do such tuition sales outside schools, especially on the first day of school for Primary 1 students?
Mr Speaker: Well done, Mr Liang. Minister of State Gan Siow Huang.
Ms Gan Siow Huang: I thank Mr Liang Eng Hwa for his supplementary question. We have observed some tuition centres employing undesirable advertising practices that appeal to parents' anxieties and fear of missing out. We do not support such practices. We think that it unduly induces parents to sign their children up for tuition and that is not healthy. Our schools certainly do not support such practices. We are studying how we could discourage tuition centres from doing this. We are reviewing our processes.
Mr Speaker: Last supplementary question. Ms Carrie Tan.
Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wanted to address Minister of State Gan and thank her for her clarification. I have also encountered, just in January, a couple of instances where parents have shared that they have observed that their Primary 1 child, in the third week of school, has been identified to be weaker in a particular subject and hence, been designated to a smaller group with the additional support for the particular subject.
And while I understand that MOE is trying to give more support to students at an earlier age, I would like to ask the Minister of State, what kind of signal is MOE sending to parents and children, where we are rushing to identify their weaknesses or strengths at such an early stage in their primary school journey? The premise is that we are trying to get the students to perform better or to catch up and underlying that premise is a sense of competition.
Does MOE have plans to review its pace of curriculum to see whether it is necessary that we need to cram so much information and knowledge into a young child's life at such an early stage, and to review the whole entire premise of why it is that we are pushing our students to perform and to meet certain expectations of what kind of level of mathematics or literary skills they must have, and how we are benchmarking this? What is the ultimate purpose for this intensified learning pace in Singapore?
Ms Gan Siow Huang: I thank Ms Carrie Tan for the supplementary question. I think it is important that we recognise that learning is for life and that it does not help if we rush through the learning only in the first few years of a child's life. It has to be a continuous journey. Secondly, we also recognise that it is important for our children to start well, even in preschool, to have some foundations in reading, communication and life skills, importantly.
That is why in our schools, if we identify that certain children seem to be weaker and falling behind in basic literacy or numeracy skills, teachers, out of care and concern, will want to bring this to the awareness of parents and work together with them to support the learning of our students. We understand that, sometimes, some households may not have the resources or abilities, and that is why we have specialised academic intervention programmes for primary school students who need more support in foundational skills.
These programmes include the Reading Remediation Programme and Learning Support for Mathematics, and we have seen good outcomes. More importantly, in building confidence of our students especially those from lower-income households when they go through these programmes. These programmes typically have fewer students and special additional resources, and they are done with consent from and also in partnership with the parents. It is not in any way intended to ask the parents to send their children for more tuition. If anything, it is to raise awareness of the parents, so that more can be done early to support the learning and to set our children up well for the longer term.
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