Singapore’s education culture has to change alongside gifted programme revamp: experts

Instead, high-ability programmes would be offered in all schools to more students who could also be selected for these initiatives at multiple junctures between Primary 4 and Primary 6, the education ministry said on Monday.

Pedagogy experts This Week in Asia spoke to said while the move was in line with the ministry’s bid to make “every school a good school”, more policy revamps and cultural shifts would be needed to make education more equitable and less stressful on students. This would be challenging since some policies have competing objectives, they added.

Introduced in 1984, GEP tested Primary 3 students, typically nine years old, to see if they were cognitively “gifted”. Currently, the top 1 per cent of students get into the programme which is only available at nine schools, meaning that some students who qualify have to switch schools.

Wong acknowledged during last week’s rally that not everyone was convinced by the slogan that “every school is a good school”. Referring to the schools in his neighbourhood that he attended, he said: “And I think I turned out OK.”

Experts note that in recent years, the education ministry has tried to make the system fairer and less stressful for students, in line with the government’s approach to redefining meritocracy and success.

In 2021, the aggregate score for the Primary School Leaving Examination was replaced with wider scoring bands to enable students to get good scores regardless of their peers’ performances.

Midyear examinations for all primary and secondary school levels were scrapped in 2023 and this year, streaming students according to their overall score was replaced with subject-based banding.

“The system is diversifying. The whole definition of what is good, what is