A Change in the Primary Curriculum

From The Star, more details on the dates of implementation.

Finally a date is set for the implementation. By next year 500 schools will further be trying it out before full implementation in 2010. It's been on the cards for some time. Mainly for the Primary School, the method of assessment will see a change of sorts. Students will be assessed more on their school work than just the major public exams. I think this would be a good as it would make learning more fun and flexible. For too long, educators and parents have been so fixated at the number of A(s) that they forget the actual purpose of education. Students learn by rote without actually benefiting from the process of education.

There will be snags and also forms of abuse like everything else. Parents will constantly need to monitor their children's work and grades. If necessary, check with the school (teachers) and enquire about their children's performance. Also, parents will need to check with their children about the classroom based assessments to see whether they are properly carried out. There will be plenty of room for abuses here as there will be a tendency to just simply award marks without carrying out the actual assessments. Or equally bad, the students will get others to do their assignments. But if parents play an active role, it would minimize problems. Problem is sometimes parents are either too busy or just not aware.

In my opinion, the teaching profession has seen a large infusion of questionable practices in the last one decade. There are many reasons...the huge amount of unnecessary paper work, the failure of the vetting system, the lack of professionalism and ethics, quality of those selected to be trained as teachers, just to name a few.

But this most recent change will be good for the children. It will allow them some breathing space to explore beyond the set curriculum. Instead of content, skills will be the focus. It would be akin to teaching them how to fish rather than giving them the fish. At this age, the ability to memorize won't get you very far in the real world. After all, information is just a couple of pushes of buttons away....it's the skills which will see them through...social, communicative, awareness of their environment, reading, ability to analyze and act on the problems...in short be a problem solver not an 'instruction taker'. Anyway, hopefully it will bring fun back into the classrooms for the kids. I hate to see the enthusiasm of these kids doused by the time they get to Year 4 of 5. I hope my girl will benefit from this change.