Knowing the Score

Working hard to achieve a higher T-score is not about beating the competition, but about creating opportunities. A higher T-score basically allows for more options for Secondary schools and their respective streams. The cut-off points for both are stipulated by the schools themselves. A T-score of 200 might be enough for the Express Stream in one school, but it’s 230 in another. Like any variable that is subject to market forces, the criteria in certain schools is driven higher by the surplus of demand for entry. This may all change in the next few years.

Calculating the T-Score

Legend has it that the T-score is the sum of all 4 subjects – English, Maths, Science and Mother Tongue – multiplied by 0.7. Some argue that it’s multiplied by 0.75. Others insist that 0.72 is more accurate.

The truth is nobody, except the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB), knows how the T-score is calculated. However, the methods above would still give a good gauge. The reason for this lack of transparency is to minimise the incidence of parents contesting the results of the PSLE. You simply have to accept what has been awarded.

As nefarious as this sounds, it actually allows SEAB some flexibility to tweak certain mechanisms in the background for the benefit of your child. One of these mechanisms is the bell curve.

The Bell Curve

To oversimplify, the bell curve is like a shifting goal post. For example, in a particular year 25% of the students scored an absolute A* (90% score and above) but the benchmark for the proportion of A* is 20% of a cohort (nobody outside of SEAB or MOE knows the exact figures for sure). The required percentage score for an A* would be increased, maybe to a 93% score and above, so that the proportion of students who achieve an A* hits that benchmark. Thus, your child’s grade is dependent upon the achieved score as compared to every other student in the whole cohort.

The bell curve ensures an even distribution of the different grades to address the variance in the difficulty of each subject’s exam paper as compared to those before. For instance, how can we ensure that the difficulty of this year’s Science paper is the same as the previous years’? Unless we use the same questions, we can’t do that.

Hence, if your child feedbacks that a particular paper was easy or hard, it really doesn’t matter as the criteria for the grades would shift to match the difficulty.

Coming Changes

As announced by the MOE, there will be major changes in the way PSLE grades are awarded by 2021. (Read all about these major changes here.) While the nitty gritty details may still be tweaked, the main ideas have major implications.

The first major change, is that the scoring bands will reflect each student’s individual performance. With this, there will be no need for the bell curve as students are no longer competing with each other. Secondly, the streaming criteria will be explicitly specified, so schools cannot manufacture arbitrary conditions to take in students with the highest T-scores.

In principle, these are good changes that shift the focus from performance to learning, and allow fair entry for any student into any school as long as the universal criteria is met. In practice, however, I wonder how SEAB will manage the variance in the difficulty of the exam papers; and whether our elite schools would be willing to give up on taking in the cream of the crop of each cohort.

All anybody can do at this point is anticipate, but nobody can fully predict the social impact that will follow. We can only deal with the repercussions in hindsight but I’m confident that the MOE has the best of intentions for our children. As parents, let’s not be quick to pick up the pitchforks and torches if the outcomes of these changes are not what we all hope for our children. Be ready and open to engage with the ministry, giving earnest feedback and even being an agent of change from the inside if given the opportunity. As stakeholders, our children’s education is everybody’s concern.

Until we come up with a better system to make sure that our children enter into the appropriate learning environments that meet their needs, the PSLE is here to stay. I’d argue that the stress that it entails is less systemic and more social. The MOE and the recent Ministers for Education have taken many salient steps in an effort to emphasise learning over performance to our children. I hope more of us take that cue and do likewise.

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