Date of Article : 6th June 2008

I would like to add my personal opinion with regard to what the writer Mui Hoong has stated about schools using scare tactics of setting extremely difficult papers before national exams in a bid to 'motivate' their students.

As having undergone the primary and secondary levels of the Singapore Education system myself, I too have come across such 'scare tactics' in the schools set by the teachers and the difficulty of the exam papers. I still remember vividly a few of my teachers comparing my class's results to that of the top schools and said that in this national exam we are competing against them and we must work very hard because we are up against the best. While it may seem as a rudimentary motivational speech, I believe that it sounded to the extent of 'scaring' the students to work better.

I believe that it is the norm for schools to set difficult exam papers before the examinations, but from the schools where I come from, most of us understood this concept. However, maybe it is the nature of my school being a mere neighbourhood school and not those in the elite where if they do badly for their mid years and preliminary examinations, a state of panic will ensue as they are expected to do well for the examinations. I must say that these are my opinions and just a gauge of what I feel on what is happening.

Nonetheless, to what the writer has said about students being embattled in their self esteem, I believe that it does occur. However, if on the first hand, the child or teenager is strong enough in his will power and determination to make a change better for himself, I do not see the reason on why he or she cannot accept the failures. If because of the failures that a person's self esteem is destroyed, then I truly wonder what kind of system are we growing up in where we are not the tough kids from before but rather those who feel everything should flow smoothly in our path. Hence, the real question here is not about the difficulty of the education system, as I believe standards must be improved each year, but rather are children becoming more and more pampered by society each passing day such that they easily lose their self confidence?

While I condone the 'scare tactics' because of what they are, I believe that sometimes they are a necessary evil that needs to be done to jolt students into waking up and discover that you can fail too. Therefore, from what needs to be done is to work hard at the examinations. Perhaps a solution will be not to have difficult examination papers throughout but maybe a difficult paper for the Mid Years, an equivalent standard to the Major Exams for the Preliminaries and finally sitting for the Major examination. In that way, both negative and positive motivational tactics are used to push the student forth to do their best for the examinations and show the student that they can do it. Of course the assumption is based on that students will work harder after their failure in Mid Years and that they do not become complacent after their Preliminary Examinations. Hence it is necessary to instill the right mindset in them after each examination on to work harder (encouragement) and not to be complacent (advice).

My, I have said alot about examinations. Have we become a society to concerned about examinations in life? Hmm...that will be a topic for another day =) Till Then!