PERFORMANCE BY ETHNIC GROUP MOE Press Releases 13 December 2002

Home > Media Centre > Press Releases

Printer-friendly page

EDUN N25-02-004

05702

13 December 2002

PERFORMANCE BY ETHNIC GROUP

1 The Ministry of Education has been releasing data on the performance of the major ethnic groups annually. The objective is to provide feedback to the communities on how their children fared in the national examinations.

2 Attached are three sets of charts showing the performance of the various ethnic groups in the PSLE, GCE 'O' and 'A' Level Examinations for the past ten years (1992-2001). (Note that the percentages in these charts are based on school candidates who sat for the respective examinations in the given years.) Also attached is a chart on the percentage of a primary one (P1) cohort admitted to post-secondary institutions. For this chart, the percentages are based on pupils who were first enrolled in P1 ten years before the given years.

Performance In PSLE (Charts A1-A5)

3 The overall proportion of PSLE pupils who were eligible for secondary school had been rising steadily until 1996 and has since stabilised at about 96% overall. See Chart A1. (For this chart, the percentages are based on pupils in all streams.)

4 The proportions of Malay and Indian pupils eligible for secondary school rose by 3.4 percentage points and 2.1 percentage points compared to the preceding year to 92.0% and 93.7% respectively in 2001.

5 The overall proportion who scored A*-C remained high at about 98% for English Language and Mother Tongue Language in 2001. The overall proportion that scored C or better was 82.8% for Mathematics and 90.5% for Science in 2001. There was a change in the base of EM1/2 pupils who sat for PSLE. With the fine-tuning of the criteria for promotion from P5 EM2 to P6 EM2, there was an increase in the number of EM2 pupils who sat for PSLE in 2001. As a result of the enlarged base, the subject performance registered a slight decline. See Charts A2-A5.

Performance In GCE 'O' Level (Charts B1-B5)

6 The overall proportions of GCE 'O' level pupils with at least 3 and at least 5 'O' level passes have been on an upward trend, reaching 93.5% and 80.0% respectively in 2001. See Charts B1 and B2.

7 The overall English Language pass rate has shown steady improvements since 1998 to register 79.8% in 2001. For the last three years, the overall pass rate in Mother Tongue Language has been moving up while that in Mathematics has remained stable at 86-87%. See Charts B3-B5.

Performance In GCE 'A' Level (Charts C1-C3)

8 In 2001, the overall percentage of GCE 'A' level pupils who obtained at least 2 'A' and 2 'AO' level passes including General Paper rose by 2.3 percentage points compared to the previous year. See Chart C1.

9 The proportion of Malay pupils who obtained 2 'A' and 2 'AO' level passes including General Paper jumped by 8.3 percentage points in 2001, due to an improvement in the pupils' General Paper results.

10 The overall pass rate in General Paper improved by 2.2 percentage points in 2001 compared to the previous year. Pass rate in Mother Tongue Language has hovered around 96% for the last four years. See Chart C2 and C3.

11 Malay pupils' General Paper pass rate rose by 8.7 percentage points in 2001, the largest increase among the major ethnic groups.

Percentage Of P1 Cohort Admitted To Post-Secondary Institutions (Pre-U, Polytechnic And ITE) (Chart D)

12 Over the years, the overall percentage of a P1 cohort admitted to post-secondary institutions viz. junior colleges, centralised institutes, polytechnics and ITE has been on an upward trend, reaching 79.4% in 2001. See Chart D.

Chart A1: Percentage of PSLE Pupils Eligible

for Secondary School