Tag: students

Prestasi Cemerlang Aisyah Nurul Izza Menjalani PSLE

SEDANG murid darjah enam lain bersuka ria selepas Peperiksaan Tamat Sekolah Rendah (PSLE) September lalu, Aisyah Nurul Izza dan rakan-rakannya di Madrasah Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiah kembali menelaah pelajaran ukhrawi yang mereka ketepikan buat sementara.

Ini kerana sebulan selepas PSLE, mereka perlu menduduki Peperiksaan Penyaluran Pengajian Islam (ISPE) merangkumi lima mata pelajaran iaitu Bahasa Arab; Bacaan dan Pengajian Quran; Sirah dan Hadis; Akidah, Fiqah dan Akhlak; serta Pengajian Sosial Islam.

Anak sulung pasangan jurutera dan suri rumah dari Indonesia itu jatuh sakit semasa ISPE. Namun, murid warga Indonesia itu tetap cemerlang dalam kedua-dua peperiksaan.

Aisyah mendapat agregat 269 dalam PSLE dengan kelulusan gred A* dalam keempat-empat mata pelajaran, dan gred keseluruhan A* dalam ISPE.

Dia menjadi murid madrasah terbaik tahun ini dan yang terbaik sejak pelajar madrasah diwajibkan mengambil PSLE pada 2008.

Aisyah juga muncul sebagai antara 10 murid terbaik dalam ISPE tahun ini. Peperiksaan itu hanya diduduki murid Madrasah Al-Irsyad, satu-satunya madrasah di bawah Sistem Madrasah Bersama (JMS) yang menawarkan pendidikan rendah.

Ditemui selepas menerima keputusan semalam, Aisyah, 12 tahun, berkata dia bukan jenis yang belajar berbulan-bulan sebelum peperiksaan.

“Saya seperti kebanyakan pelajar, belajar pada saat akhir sebelum peperiksaan. Namun, saya memastikan saya memberi perhatian penuh di dalam kelas dan membuat tugasan yang diberi guru dengan teliti dan bersungguh-sungguh,” kata anggota jawatankuasa eksekutif pemimpin pelajar Madrasah Al-Irsyad itu.

Dengan keputusan itu, Aisyah boleh melanjutkan pendidikan ukhrawi peringkat menengah di bawah JMS di Madrasah Aljunied atau pendidikan sekular di Madrasah Al-Arabiah.

Dia juga boleh memohon melanjutkan pelajaran di sekolah menengah nasional termasuk sekolah perdana seperti Sekolah Perempuan Raffles (RGS).

Aisyah belum membuat keputusan sama ada ingin meneruskan pelajaran di madrasah atau sekolah menengah nasional tetapi berhasrat menceburi aliran sekular kerana meminati kimia dan matematik.

Seorang lagi murid madrasah cemerlang ialah Siti Nur Sarah Ashri, dari Madrasah Al-Maarif, yang mendapat agregat 242 mata.

Dia meraih gred ‘A*’ bagi Bahasa Melayu, ‘A’ bagi Bahasa Inggeris, dan ‘B’ bagi Matematik serta Sains.

Seorang murid Madrasah Wak Tanjong, Asiyah Begam Yusuff, dan Madrasah Al-Irsyad, Syarif Rahman Roslan, pula mendapat agregat 232, dengan kelulusan gred ‘A’ dalam keempat- empat mata pelajaran.

“Anak-anak ini selama enam tahun, kami telah terapkan strategi yang sangat menyeluruh. Sokongan ibu ayah pun memainkan peranan yang amat penting. Semuanya akhirnya membuahkan hasil yang sangat menyenangkan hati.”

– Pengetua Madrasah Al-Irsyad, Encik Nor Isham Sanif, mengenai pencapaian pelajar Madrasah Al-Irsyad.

Source:http://beritaharian.sg

November 23, 2014
Eugene Tan: Do Away With Race-Based Annual Academic Data

Every year, the Ministry of Education (MOE) publishes data on how Singaporean students fared in the previous year’s national examinations; that is, for the Primary School Leaving Examination, and the GCE O- and A-Levels.

The data demonstrates the significant progress of Singaporean students over the past two decades. Last year, 95 per cent of the 2003 Primary One cohort proceeded to post-secondary education after 10 years of schooling.

Before last year, the annual releases were titled Performance by Ethnic Group in National Examinations. They are now titled 10-Year Trend of Educational Performance. However, the data remain primarily organised and broken down according to the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) racial classification.

Raising academic standards is a collective national effort. We should not allow success or failure to be perceived in racial terms when other factors such as socio-economic status are playing a larger role.

Such a routine public release of annual data on the major ethnic groups’ academic performances is likely to have the unintended consequence of reinforcing racial stereotypes, especially of the minority groups.

The MOE should replace the current practice of annual reporting of such data with periodic reporting every five or 10 years. As the ministry stated in its 2014 data release earlier this month, “year-to-year fluctuations are to be expected as each batch of students is different, so it is more meaningful to focus on longer-term trends over 10 years”.

In November 2012, I asked in Parliament whether the objective of providing feedback to the communities on their students’ academic performance can be achieved by a limited release at five- or 10-year intervals, when comparisons and analyses can be more meaningful and productive.

The MOE’s Senior Parliamentary Secretary Hawazi Daipi replied that the annual release of data “enables the respective communities to monitor the effectiveness of their educational programmes, and recognise and celebrate their children’s achievements. There is also value in providing such information so that the community, ethnic self-help groups and the public can study the data and discuss areas for improvement”.

If ethnic self-help groups need the information annually to assess and tweak their programmes, the MOE can easily provide the data directly to them away from the public glare. But circumspection is needed with annual data, since such programmes take time to raise academic standards and performance.

PROVIDE DATA BASED ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

To be sure, the data is of some use in examining educational performance trends. Yet, in presenting trends, such data are not necessarily better if they do not provide meaningful information, and this undermines the primary purpose of releasing it.

For example, the data show that Malay students, despite making the biggest improvement in mathematics, still do not fare as well as their non-Malay counterparts.

In 2004, 67.8 per cent of Malay students passed O-Level mathematics. The figure has hovered at around 70 per cent since 2009. The comparative figures for Chinese and Indian students were 93 and 80 per cent, respectively, last year. But these statistics do not tell us why some groups perform better than others.

This is not to mollycoddle some groups or to massage the facts of educational performance of the various races. Instead, greater attention and care should be put on the type and regularity of the information released, and how to release it in a measured way that will strengthen the efforts and self-esteem of groups that do not do so well.

How about publishing data on how students perform according to their socio-economic status (using proxies such as housing types and household income), which is more relevant than race in explaining and uplifting educational performance?

Is it not more likely the case that a non-Chinese student who needs help in mathematics would have more in common with his Chinese counterpart who also needs help in the same subject than with a fellow non-Chinese student who is doing well in mathematics?

Research has shown that academic performance is not simply a function of actual ability. It is affected by the shared beliefs that people hold about the performance and abilities of their own and other social groups, whether it is race, religion or gender.

Stereotypes are beliefs people have about different social groups, and how these beliefs affect our attitudes and abilities. Stereotype threat occurs in situations where people fear that their poor performance, when judged by or treated in terms of their race, fulfils a negative stereotype about their group. When people perceive a stereotype threat, they tend to underperform, thereby conforming to the stereotype.

Context matters, too, and affects how we view presented data. We have long imbibed the dominant meritocratic discourse, which often equates academic success with one’s individual ability and effort. Hence, education successes and failures are commonly framed and seen as resulting from factors originating outside our well-regarded education system.

The data are organised along race, but do particularistic factors such as race explain why a group lags behind academically, never mind the significant progress made?

In educational psychology, the cultural deficit model posits that some groups underachieve vis-a-vis the dominant majority group because their culture is disadvantaged in important ways — in skills, knowledge, and behaviour — which contributes to poor school performance generally.

At a time when the CMIO racial classification is less relevant with more inter-racial and international marriages, we must do away with racial stereotypes or notions of cultural deficits, because they undermine the very students we seek to help. Only then can our students develop to their full potential, unencumbered by the stereotypes and baggage of race, religion and language.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Eugene Tan is associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University School of Law and a former Nominated Member of Parliament.

Source: www.todayonline.com

November 22, 2014
4 Ways Students React To Their Poor PSLE Results

1) Shocked “AIYO”

Aiyo! That Alvin never study get 3 As, I do 20 years worth of PSLE practice papers never even get 1 A…

2) Facepalm

Siao liao… Go back confirm kena from my father… I think I should just go apply to work at Macs sua…

3) Cry Baby

My results is like shit… How am I gonna go to same school with bae? OMG bae is gonna find a new girl who is smarter than me, prettier than me. NOOOOOOOOO….

4) Screw This Shit

Gather one group of friends who did like shit and burn the PSLE result slips together. BURN BITCH BURN!!!!!!!

Source: http://beta.sgag.sg

November 22, 2014
SDP Questions The Singapore Education System
As this article is published, thousands of pupils would have gone back to school to collect their PSLE results. Some students will celebrate; others will be in tears, crushed in spirit.

What sort of system inflicts such travesty on 12-year-olds? What sort of education do we have that treats academic performance like a trophy sport: Glory in victory and agony in defeat?

What values are we imparting to young minds? What happens to the self-esteem and the sense of self-worth when he or she discovers that she is only a ‘Normal’ or ‘Technical’ student?

And then they can streamed to ‘elite’ or ‘neighbourhood’ schools. The really ‘smart’ ones, who are usually also the richer ones, get extra help in independent schools and gifted programmes.

A radio DJ yesterday had to sound this caution to pupils: “Whatever score you get, your parents love you.” What kind of society have we built where our children have to be reminded that their score in one exam does not mean that their parents hate them?

If they don’t do well who have they let down? Themselves? Their parents? The Government?

This subject is not just a theoretical one, good only for an academic discussion. It affects real lives:
- 22% of Singaporean children between 6-12 yrs thought of killing themselves. (ST, Jan 2014) Sadly, many actually carry out the act.
- The no. of children warded for “aggressive, suicidal or hallucination tendencies” at IMH jumped by 35% between 2005-2010. Mental health professionals attribute these problems to academic stress. (CNA, 2 Feb 2013)
- One in three students say they sometimes think that life is not worth living because of the fear of exams. (FEER, August 2001)
We must stop doing this to our children. It is not good for them, it is not good for parents, and it is not good for the future of our country. In its place, we must device a system when we educate our children to be creative, compassionate and intelligent members of society with self-confidence and a strong sense of self-worth.

There are a few ways that we can do this and they are spelt out under the SDP education policy titled Educating For Creativity and Equality:

1. Remove PSLE. As pointed out, the stress of exams inflict horrific psychological trauma on our children. What’s more, it is not an intelligent approach to assess the abilities of primary-school students on a single exam.

2. Cultivate creative minds. Build confidence in children by helping them adopt an attitude of independent thinking, willingness to make mistakes, and persevere in the face of failed attempts.

3. Reduce syllabus, broaden curriculum. The syllabi for existing subjects will be reduced while subjects such as music appreciation, speech and drama, literature, etc. as well as periods for students to collaborate and interact to develop creativity will be introduced to provide a well-rounded curriculum.

4. Reduce class size. The SDP will reduce class size in our schools to 20 pupils/class from the current 40 to provide students the individual attention they need to succeed.

5. Scrap school and class ranking. Comparing exam results and ranking students and classes will detract from the real purpose of education which is self-improvement and self-actualisation.

To read the full paper with other proposals, click here.

Source: http://yoursdp.org
November 21, 2014
Children As Young As 7 years Old Exposed to Porn on Internet

One in two teenagers here has watched or read sexually explicit materials, a poll has found, with some as young as seven when they were first exposed to it.

And one in three admitted viewing pornography in the past year, whether intentional or accidental.

The first large-scale survey here to examine children’s exposure to pornography, which polled 836 students aged 13 to 15, was conducted by Touch Cyber Wellness, the main agency that gives online safety talks in schools here.

Experts say the findings are worrying as such content affects young people’s attitudes and behaviour towards love and sex, and may lead to sexual crimes.

Dr Munidasa Winslow, an addictions specialist in private practice, called the figures “expectedly horrendous”.

“Technology is driving a new wave of addictions – whether gaming or pornography – because… now, it is all available at a click,” he said.

In the survey, 77 per cent of those exposed to sexual content accessed it through smartphones.

The findings largely echoed those elsewhere. Studies in the United States and Australia found that about 40 per cent of teens and pre-teens visited X-rated sites deliberately or accidentally.

In the Touch survey, 5 per cent of the teens who had seen porn encountered it first in lower primary levels – at age nine or younger. They were not asked how often they accessed this subsequently. Pornography was defined in the study as images or content, such as anime and erotic novels, that depicted naked people or people having sex.

Students from three secondary schools were polled, and 24 were interviewed in depth one on one.

Experts say the results reflected how Singapore has one of the highest rates of mobile phone use, and insufficient adult guidance.

“I believe it is largely due to the inadequate discussions and lack of guidance from parents, so young people look elsewhere for sex education, of which pornography is a poor teacher,” said clinical psychologist Joel Yang of SIM University.

Based on the interviews, many boys started viewing sexual content out of boredom or curiosity, said Touch Cyber Wellness assistant manager Chong Ee Jay.

Asked how they first encountered such materials, half the boys polled said they deliberately sought these online. A third of the girls read these in erotic or romance novels. The rest came upon these by accident or were egged on by friends.

Experts say the effects of viewing porn may vary by gender.

“It may lead to pressure on girls to look and act a certain way when they compare their bodies with those online. When boys see the male figures as aggressors or in positions of dominance, they may become disrespectful towards women,” said Mr Chong.

The obsession with porn affects their studies, self-esteem and interpersonal relationships. Overseas studies have also shown a link between consuming pornography and committing sex crimes.

Since adult-only materials are readily available, experts say parents should install Web filters on computers and mobile devices. They should also tell their children that porn is not sex education, and where to seek help.

Sex education teachers should not shy away from the topic either. Mr Chong will be training them on how to broach the topic.

Dr Winslow said: “For sexual addictions, people are only as sick as their secrets. The more they can talk about them in safe places, the more the addictions lose their hold or power over people.”

Ms Yap Chai Kian, 43, a manager with a nine-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son, said she has been having regular conversations about sex and porn with her children since they were two.

“I try to find opportunities to talk to them, like when crime shows on TV show people sending sexual images to one another, so that it does not feel awkward.”

“Jie jie, can I sleep with you?” the nine-year-old boy asked a woman he barely knew as he tugged at her shirt.

Horrified, the Touch Cyber Wellness trainer who visited his school to give a cyber wellness talk referred him to the school counsellor.

Later, he confessed he had been watching pornography at home and had sexual thoughts throughout the day.

He first chanced on online erotica in Primary 2, while looking for a photo of a naked aboriginal boy for a project.

“I was so shocked that I ran off,” he told the trainer.

But the images captured his imagination, and he looked at them whenever he was alone at home. Soon after, he was looking through such pictures twice a week and touching himself. He said: “I know it is not good as it affects my thinking. But it felt good, and I couldn’t control myself.”

The counsellor roped in his parents, who installed filtering software in his computer and had more open discussions about sex. After a year of counselling, he has broken free of his addiction and learnt to channel his energies elsewhere, such as sports.

For a 14-year-old girl, her habit of viewing pornography thrice weekly started a year ago when she searched for it online to satisfy her curiosity.

She had been avidly reading romance novels, many of which had graphic love-making scenes. Her close friends also often talked about how their boyfriends would watch pornography regularly.

Watching pornography and masturbation satisfied her, but also left her feeling guilty, ashamed and inadequate. The women she saw online had fuller breasts compared with hers. She searched online for breast enhancement supplements.

“It affected the way I felt about myself, and I began to feel insecure about my diet and dressing,” she told a counsellor, who then worked with her to create a more positive body image and build up her self-esteem.

She said: “I used to want so much to look like a porn star. I am slowly learning that that is not how all women look.”

Source: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/half-teens-here-exposed-pornography-survey?page=0%2C1#sthash.rMRTm99I.dpuf

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September 8, 2014