Milestones in the Education System Primary Education 1979
Streaming at primary levels was introduced starting with the 1979 Primary 3 (P3) cohort – the Goh Report recommended that students be channelled to the Normal, Extended and Monolingual streams. The Normal course led to the PSLE at the end of P6. The Extended course offered a slower pace of teaching and learning, and students sat for the PSLE after 7-8 years in primary school. The Monolingual course, which helped students to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills to prepare them for training in a skill or trade with then-Vocational and Industrial Training Board (VITB), led to the Primary School Proficiency Examination (PSPE) at the end of 8 years of schooling.
1991
P3 streaming was removed, and P4 streaming (EM1, EM2 and EM3 streams) was introduced. The 1991 Report on Improving Primary School Education recommended that streaming take place at the end of P4. Schools assessed students’ performance in English Language, Mother Tongue Language (MTL) and Mathematics, and placed each student in one of the three streams, while ensuring comparable standards across schools. The students advanced to P5 in the same school.
1993
Last batch of P8 Extended and P8 Monolingual students.
2004
Streaming was refined further by merging the EM1 and EM2 streams, while keeping the EM3 stream. Distinctions between the streams were further reduced as students who were not from the EM1 stream were also allowed to opt for Higher Mother Tongue Language (HMTL) (or Standard Mother Tongue Language if they were previously offering it at the Foundational level) if they were capable of offering it at a more demanding level.
2005
Schools were given the flexibility to integrate the merged EM1 and 2 stream, and EM3 stream in the teaching of non-academic subjects. While students in EM3 stream were still taught as a group for their academic subjects, schools could organise and band their students in a manner that would achieve the best educational outcomes for them.
2008
Streaming at primary levels was removed and replaced with Subject-Based Banding (SBB), starting with the 2008 P5 cohort. Under SBB, students could offer a mix of Standard or Foundation subjects depending on their aptitude in each subject.
2021
A new PSLE scoring system was implemented. Under the new system, students were scored using eight scoring bands known as Achievement Levels (ALs), with the AL reflecting each students’ level of achievement, rather than how he/she had performed relative to his/her peers. This also reduced fine differentiation of students’ academic results at a young age.
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