Singapore's education system has to give everyone an equal chance at success, but in order to achieve this, society also has to accept that there are different pathways to success.
Senior Minister of State for Education Indranee Rajah said this at the end of the first of three 'Our Singapore Conversation' sessions on Education on Saturday.
The session saw about 70 members of the public discuss changes they would like to see in the education system.
They spoke about over emphasis on examinations, as well as providing equal opportunities.
Summing up the session, Ms Indranee told the audience that she got a sense that while many acknowledged there needs to be some competition, that competitiveness has resulted in the focus on the individual, at the expense of others.
She said the Ministry of Education is working on areas like adding more university places, but even as it does this, it's important to recognise that a university education is not the only pathway to success.
Ms Indranee said, "We've kind of equated the good grades with a sort of value judgment, and so good grades implies a better person, which is not the case, and we know that intuitively and instinctively, which is why we're having so much of this conversation about values, etc.
"And where parents react very strongly, as if they feel that, "My child is not in the 'A' class or in the first class, or goes to a branded school, does that mean my child is stupid, does that mean that my child is of less value than another person's child, does that mean that my child is a second rate Singaporean?" It does not.
"But the only thing is that in the course of time, where there has been the focus on grades, and grades have been the measure for success, then people feel as though there is a label that if my child doesn't get that particular grade, my child or I have been labelled, and somehow I'm not a success, and people are reacting to that.
"Which means if you want to address that, the system has to be such that everybody can feel that they have a chance to progress, develop their fullest potential, and be a success at the end of the day, irrespective of the pathway they choose. But in order to do that, society must also accept that the different pathways are an equal measure of success, and there isn't only one way."
Speaking to the media after the event, Ms Indranee said participants made many suggestions that will be looked into, including letting a child take the exam when he or she was ready, and introducing subject-based banding to cultivate social mixing.
This means letting children attending the same class, but pull them out for subjects according to their pace.
Ms Indranee said: "What I felt parents were most concerned about is that at the end of assessment, the child should not be attached with a stigma, and that the assessment should allow for the fact that people have different developmental rates and capabilities, and at the end of the day, you want everybody to finish the race. It should not be a system where if you can't make the finishing line this round, that you can't do it the next time."
Terence Tan, a participant, said: "We talked about things like not being so focused on scores on the exams, maybe having an assessment-based system-scoring based on assessments. We also talked about possibly through train education for every student - move the stress over to the secondary school itself, rather than primary school when they're still young."
Source: Channel News Asia