Debated in Parliament on 3 Apr 2024.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Education whether the Ministry has assessed if instituting one written Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) examination sitting for Mother Tongue Language (MTL) subjects will result in additional psychological stress and pressure on students arising from (i) having only one chance to pass MTL examinations instead of two previously and (ii) sitting for the MTL examination together with other subject examinations when they could previously focus on the latter after clearing the former in the middle of the year.
In the last five years, more than 95% of students have met the minimum MTL requirement – that is, at least D7 for O-Level Mother Tongue Language (MTL) – for admission to Junior Colleges (JC) or Millennia Institute (MI) with the mid-year sitting. Any grade improvement for those who took the second sitting only changed the post-Secondary posting outcomes for less than 2% of the cohort who took the O-Level MTL examinations.
Under Full Subject-based Banding, students have greater flexibility to learn MTL at different subject-levels. They can meet the minimum MTL requirement for entry into JC or MI based on their results in G1 or G2 MTL, beyond just G3 or Higher MTL. Students who do not meet the MTL requirement can continue to be granted provisional admission to JC or MI.
With the MTL sitting in September under the SEC examination, schools have given feedback that students will benefit from more curriculum time for MTL learning. Students, in particular, appreciated the spacing out of their examination load with the written papers for MTL and EL scheduled approximately one month ahead of other subjects.
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