Primary School Leaving Examination
The Primary School Leaving Examination is a national examination in Singapore that is administered by the Ministry of Education and taken by all students near the end of their sixth year in primary school before they move on to secondary school. The examination test students' proficiency in the English language, their respective mother tongue languages, and a higher mother tongue
, should the student be taking it, as well as mathematics and science. The paper is split into 2 parts, paper 1 and 2. Paper 1 typically lasts under a half hour, and is an essay for languages, or, in the case of math and science, is slightly easier than paper 2. Paper 1, for math and science, will include a standardized optical answer sheet that uses optical mark recognition to detect answers. The languages will provide an answer booklet for the essay. Paper 2 will consist of comprehension and the understanding of the subject. The paper typically lasts under 2 hours. Students will NOT answer on the question booklet itself for certain sections of the paper. The question booklet is for workings and annotations. Answers will be written in the Answer booklet, or the OAS.
The format of the PSLE and the presence of it in the Singapore education system gives it a part in national culture. PSLE material has also been exported to other countries. Some schools abroad, particularly in Southeast Asia, India and China, have their pupils sit the international version of the exam, the iPSLE, to provide a benchmark of their performance, compared to Singapore's standards.
In March 2018, calls for the removal of the PSLE was rejected in parliament by then Education Minister (Schools) Ng Chee Meng, who cited it as a "useful checkpoint" in a child's education journey. On 28 September 2018, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung reiterated his stance on keeping the
PSLE while announcing that the ministry will remove several mid-year and year-end exams across the board from primary one up to secondary four with the aim of reducing assessments based on exam results and to encourage students to be "all-rounders".
History and past performance
The Primary School Leaving Examination was modeled after the British eleven plus exam and was first conducted in 1960. Its predecessor was the Secondary School Entrance Examination, which was conceived in 1952 when it was known as the Standard Six Entrance Examination up to 1954 and then as Secondary School Entrance Examination when the primary school classes were no longer named as Primary 1 and 2 and the standard 1 to 5 and started from Primary 1 to 6 instead. Promotion was to Form 2 in the secondary school instead of the previous Standard Six starting from January 1955, during the early days of self-government.Though complaints were made about the 2007 PSLE Papers being out of syllabus and too challenging, this continued in the 2008 PSLE Paper.
Performance
In 2005, 51,077 pupils sat for the examination, a 0.4% increase from the previous year. The majority of the pupils qualified for secondary school. 62.2% of those who passed were eligible for the Special or the Express stream and the remaining 35.6% were eligible for either the Normal or Normal courses. 1163 pupils of the cohort assessed were not ready for secondary school in 2006 or were more suited for vocational training.39,286 students sat for the PSLE in 2015. The Ministry of Education said that a total of 38,610 students were eligible for secondary school. 66.2 % of the pupils qualified for the Express stream, 21.7 % for Normal, and 10.4 % qualified for Normal. The remaining 1.7% did not qualify for the three streams and were offered choices to retake the examination or to move on to specialised vocational schools.