Education has always been an emotive topic in Singapore and nothing seems to bring out parental angst and reflections like the annual Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), as seen from the recent uproar over the Mathematics paper.

As a young mother, I naively wondered about the brouhaha surrounding primary school registration and subsequently PSLE. Having seen two children through PSLE — the younger one just this month — I find myself still surprised by the passions it can engage.

After all, this is 2019, where we now have a multi-track education system that allows students a longer runway, greater breadth and more flexibility to grow and develop.

At the same time, graduate underemployment is a growing phenomenon worldwide. Gone are the days when a university degree provides a sure ticket to a promising and enduring career.

This year’s PSLE cohort belongs to Generation Z. They are digital natives and as human resource gurus tell us, Gen Zers are big on individuality, not the most patient, have high expectations and possess entrepreneurial sparks in spades. 

They are the generation that can spark a global climate strike and #cancel brand overnight with just their handphones. Bruised strawberries? I am not so sure.

Still, every spanking bright Gen Z member who hurls that mighty hashtag like a cyber shuriken starts off as an impressionable young child. In Singapore, this means going through the Singapore rite of passage called PSLE.

It is every parent’s instinct to want to protect and make provisions for our children. How we do it will differ according to our personal experiences, abilities and reading of the future.

Will we be a tiger mum, an eagle dad or raise free-range kids? Do we allocate money to tuition or family travel? Do we spend precious time with our children doing academics or go cycling at East Coast Park? Do we motivate with incentives or fear?

As I sat at a food court one day, I overheard two fathers talking. Their conversations started with commiseration over their children’s tuition cost, and soon became a comparison of who was paying more.

They were proud of the amount of money they were investing in their children’s education - they were making provision for their children’s future and hence good fathers. 

It dawned upon me that PSLE, as the first national exam, is by extension, also the first report card on our parenting beliefs and efforts.

Have we read the winds correctly? Have we prepared them right? And while parents of the past looked only at pass or fail, today’s parents are judged on not just a T-score but also a happiness score. Have we pushed them enough? Not enough? Too much?

The Goldilocks zone has never seem more elusive.

Consider then how the foreseeable future is one filled with constant disruptions both good and bad.

Evolving artificial intelligence, the interconnectedness of societies bridged by cheap transport and the Internet, global warming and the attendant challenges — are just some of the known cards.

In mere decades, the world as we know it will be different in ways that we can only guess at, and this does not even take into account the cultural and geopolitical fractures that will appear in a world that is folding and evolving with rapidity.

Hence the new educational buzzwords — resilience, creativity, lifelong learning.

Should our Gen Z warriors be spending their entire upper primary school years learning and practising for this one exam?  Were the four (or five) days of PSLE exams do or die? Is PSLE really the be-all and end-all?  

Childhood is a precious time for learning and discovery and building up one’s personal ballast and identity. This can only come about if we truly seek to recognise and develop each child’s unique strengths, both academic and non-academic, without flinching away from his weaknesses, and only if we put school within the wider context of a life filled with varied experiences.

This cannot come about if we see PSLE as anything more than what it really is — a queue number in a nationwide school placement exercise, a step in a much longer journey.

Perhaps by giving up his hobbies, outdoor time and family time for more tuition and drilling, my child can score 20 more marks.

But in the greater scheme of things, is not giving up all these non-academic but vital aspects of identity building during these formative years for another 20 marks too high a price to pay? 

I think it is.

Between tiger cubs and free-range kids, there is a middle ground. With a dyslexic child and another math-phobic one, I review my children’s learning periodically with them.

In the run-up to their respective PSLE, they had a group tuition each. On top of their schoolwork, both my children made independent plans to study with friends.

I was impressed when my “I’m-not-born-to-do-Math” child arranged to stay back in school to explain some sums to a friend who struggled to pass the subject. My boy sagely explained that being closer in abilities, his explanation would make more sense than the teacher’s.

Beyond this, my children’s lives were not drastically altered and they continued to read and draw, play in the field or swim well past sunset. Astonished neighbours would accost me with: “Doesn’t he have PSLE? Doesn’t he have tuition?” 

Yes, and yes. But the kid had been up since 6am — it was time to unwind, even if PSLE was round the corner.

After all, while PSLE may be an important part of student life, it is not his whole life.

My older child was pleased with his eventual results. That is more important to me than anything else.

The verdict is still not in for my younger Gen Zer. But watching his jaunty steps out the door to his first movie outing with friends, that Math Paper 2 notwithstanding, I thought I must have done something right.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Iris Tan is a work-from-home mother with two boys, aged 12 and 15.