Special and Express Streams to Merge from 2008
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Since 1995, the number of Sec 1 Express stream students offering High Mother Tongue has jumped more than five times.
“Fewer labels, less confusion” says one parent. “Makes no difference to me - my child is already studying Higher Mother Tongue, and she’s in the Express stream,” says another. These were some of the typical parents’ reactions when they learned that from 2008, the Special stream will be merged with the Express stream.
Perhaps the parents’ nonchalance is understandable with the diminishing differences between the two streams over the years. When the Special stream was introduced in 1979, it was then meant to be a separate course for the top 10 per cent of the PSLE cohort. These students could offer Higher Chinese Language at Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools, where students study English and Chinese as first languages.
Over the years, however, the prerequisites for offering Higher Chinese Language - and Higher Mother Tongue in general - have been gradually relaxed to cater to a changing education landscape.
In 1986, the Special course was expanded to include Higher Malay and Higher Tamil options for students in the top 10 per cent of the PSLE cohort, even though they were not studying in SAP schools.
Today, Higher Mother Tongue in secondary school can be offered by anyone in the top 30 per cent of the PSLE cohort who also scored an A* in Mother Tongue or a distinction in Higher Mother Tongue. Moreover, secondary schools have the discretion to allow students who do not meet this formal requirement to study the subject, if they feel that the student has a knack for languages and are able to take the subject without affecting their broader academic development.
Today, Higher Mother Tongue can be offered to anyone in the top 30 per cent of the PSLE cohort who meets certain criteria.
Students are certainly seizing the widened opportunities to offer Higher Mother Tongue. Between 1995 and 2007, the number of Sec 1 Express stream students offering Higher Mother Tongue has jumped more than five times - from 862 to 4,466. Presently, 51 per cent of Higher Mother Tongue students are in SAP schools, while the rest are in non-SAP schools - a small two-percentage-point gap that is not lost on MOE. In fact, many schools place students offering Higher Mother Tongue and those who do not in the same class, further blurring the distinction between the Special and Express streams.
Nonetheless, the place of SAP schools in the education system remains the same. Even though there will not be a Special stream from next year, the SAP schools will continue to preserve the best traditions of Chinese-medium schools and nurture students’ capabilities in two languages. As MOE explained, “With the merger, only the label on the student would be removed, nothing else has changed”.