INFORMATION SHEET

PERFORMANCE BY ETHNIC GROUP

1. The Ministry of Education has been releasing data on the performance of the various ethnic groups since 1988. The objective is to provide feedback to the different communities on how their children have performed in the national examinations.

2. Attached are three sets of charts showing the performance of the different major ethnic groups in the PSLE, GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level Examinations for the past ten years (1989 – 1998). [Note that the pass rates reflected in the charts are based on the candidates who took the examination in the given year.]

Performance in PSLE (Charts A1-A5)

3. Chart A1 shows the percentage of pupils who qualified for secondary schools at the end of primary six. This has been trending upwards over the years but appears to be stabilising since the 1996 PSLE. For this chart, the percentages are based on all pupils, including those in the EM3 stream.

4. Charts A2-A5 show how well EM1 and EM2 pupils have performed in English Language, Mother Tongue Language, Mathematics and Science, in terms of percentage scoring A*, A, B or C. The grades are chosen so that the results can be compared to past data. Besides these, there are also grades D, E and U (for ungraded). [Note that these are not considered as failure grades.] Between 1997 and 1998, there was an improvement in performance in English Language and Science, but performance in Mother Tongue Language and Mathematics declined slightly.

Performance in GCE ‘O’ Level (Charts B1-B5)

5. Charts B1 and B2 shows the percentage of pupils passing at least 3 and 5 O-levels respectively. There was a slight improvement in these two indicators in 1998 when compared to the previous year. [Note that grades obtained in previous sittings are not included.]

6. Charts B3-B5 show the pass rates of O-level pupils in English language, Mother Tongue Language and Mathematics. There was a slight overall improvement in performance in English Language in 1998. Performance in Mathematics was little changed, but there was a slight dip for Mother Tongue Language.

Performance in GCE ‘A’ Level (Charts C1-C3)

7. Chart C1 shows the percentage of pupils passing at least 2A and 2AO-levels including General Paper. There was an improvement of nearly 2% points in 1998 when compared to the previous year.

8. Charts C2 and C3 show the pass rates of A-level pupils in GP and Mother Tongue Language. There was a slight improvement in performance in GP, but performance in Mother Tongue Language dipped slightly.