The pain of PSLE

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was blogging about Miss Chu gearing up to start Primary One in Singapore, mulling over the possible end to the carefree childhood they had enjoyed thus far. Well, it’s certainly not been a walk in the park, but thankfully, for the most part, school life has not been as brutal as feared. In the blink of an eye, 5 1/2 years have passed by and the dreaded PSLE is finally upon us. This year, Miss Chu’s workload has ramped up significantly, hence her long hiatus from YouTube.

PSLE stands for the Primary School Leaving Exam, a tough set of examinations in four core subjects: Maths, English, Science and Mother Tongue (in our case, Mandarin) which all children must sit in their final year of primary school in order to progress to secondary. PSLE is the sorting mechanism which distributes Singapore’s kids into secondary schools of “varying levels of desirability”. Despite the government’s insistence that Every School is a Good School, the arms race to propel one’s progeny into the imagined upper echelons of secondary schooling proves otherwise, at least in the hearts and minds of many local parents. So for many students, this early educational journey is summed up by a final score, a number which will define a child’s place in the pecking order and perhaps play a significant part in determining their future. 

This exam (comprising at least 11 separate papers) is deliberately hard as Singapore tries to sift out the absolute geniuses from the merely very bright. As I glance over Miss Chu’s shoulder, I notice that much of the exam content is stuff I only learned in secondary school, and there are several questions that I (along with much of the adult population I think!) would struggle with. Someone compiled some of the trickiest math questions here if you fancy a go.

PSLE is the reason most children here have after-school schedules packed with homework and tuition. Some parents actually quit work during their child’s P6 year to help coach them, some pay eye-watering amounts for private tuition (at the expense of allocating adequate savings towards retirement), and many teachers leave the local school system to set up (more lucrative) tuition centres instead.

Studying for this exam requires so many hours that Miss Chu wished she could clone herself to get all the work done a little faster…hence a little nifty video-editing magic using a 360 camera and app (the Insta360 OneR) in our latest video:

The whole educational pressure cooker is common across East Asian nations and enough of a pain point to put many people off the idea of having children altogether. China recently took the radical step of banning for-profit tuition – in a bid to boost the birth rate. S. Korea has also struggled with taming its obsession with tuition, although an outright ban failed. (Singapore’s birth rate is also woefully low, but most don’t think there will be any curbs made to the local billion-dollar tuition industry here.)

Nevertheless, there is growing awareness and concern surrounding the serious social / mental health issues at stake, in particular the ever-widening inequality gap (as exam success is closely correlated with socio-economic status) and the heavy toll these exams exact on student mental health. For me, the narrow focus on exam-passing (at the expense of developing other important skills) is worrying. The ongoing pandemic has thrown these issues into sharp relief but they have been bubbling under the surface for years. Yet there still seems to be great reluctance to do away with the exam altogether. 

Even though I think Miss Chu has relatively strong support to get through the exam period, the last few months have been stressful, with tiredness, stomachaches, anxiety and the like all becoming noticeably frequent. Considering she is quite optimistic and upbeat by nature, I can see the impact this relentless exam prep is having on her generally bubbly character. 

To me, it is a pity that the last leg of primary school here is quite so burdensome. My fondest memories from my final year at primary were from the excitement of a week-long school trip to Sarawak and the fun of rehearsing for our year-end musical. Miss Chu was pretty envious to discover I didn’t have to memorise a single Chinese idiom or take a single exam throughout my primary school years. With all the pandemic disruption, excursions, camps and performances have been cancelled and Miss Chu’s last 2 years of primary school have been, unfortunately, mostly focused on academic learning and exam-passing. Nevertheless… it’ll all be over in a few weeks time and Miss Chu can pull out her long list of Fun Things to Do After PSLE!