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10 September 2005

Performance By Ethnic Group
1995 – 2004

                   Improvement in Overall Performance for PSLE, ‘O’ & ‘A’ Levels

1.          The Ministry of Education releases 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.          The following performance charts (charts are in pdf format) are attached:

• 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 (1995-2004)1.
• A chart on the percentage of a primary one (P1) cohort admitted to post-secondary institutions2 .   
  

PERFORMANCE IN PSLE (CHARTS A1-A5)
Performance by Overall Measure
3.         The overall proportion of PSLE pupils eligible for secondary school has remained above 96% since 2001.   See Chart A1.  (For this chart, the percentages are based on all pupils.)

Performance by Subject
4.         The overall proportion of pupils who scored A*-C3  in English Language and Mother Tongue Language have remained high - above 97% - while those in Mathematics and Science are above 80% and 90% respectively.  See Charts A2-A5.

PERFORMANCE IN GCE 'O' LEVEL (CHARTS B1-B5)
Performance by Overall Measure
5.         The overall proportion of GCE ‘O’ level pupils with at least 3 ‘O’ and 5 ‘O’ level passes, which have been on an upward trend, reached 95% and 83% respectively in 2004.  See Charts B1 and B2.

Performance by Subject
6.         The overall English Language pass rate has shown steady improvement to reach 85% in 2004.  The overall pass rate in Mother Tongue Language has remained high - above 95% since 2001 - while that in Mathematics improved by one percentage point to 89% in 2004, compared to the previous year.  See Charts B3-B5.   

PERFORMANCE IN GCE 'A' LEVEL (CHARTS C1-C3)
Performance by Overall Measure
7.         In 2004, the overall percentage of GCE ‘A’ level pupils who obtained at least 2 ‘A’ and 2 ‘AO’ level passes including General Paper increased by 1.7 percentage points compared to the previous year to reach 92%.  This reflects an upward trend since 2000. See Chart C1. 

Performance by Subject
8.         The overall pass rate in General Paper improved to 94% in 2004, an increase of two percentage points compared to the previous year.  The overall pass rate in Mother Tongue Language remained high - above 96% since 1995.  See Charts C2 and C3.

PERCENTAGE OF P1 COHORT ADMITTED TO POST-SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS (PRE-U, POLYTECHNIC AND ITE) (CHART D)
9.         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, exceeding 80% since 2001.   

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[1] The percentages in these charts are based on school candidates who sat for the respective examinations.

[2] The percentages are based on pupils who were first enrolled in P1 ten years ago.

[3] These grades are chosen so that the results can be compared to those in the past.  Prior to 1993, the pass grades at PSLE were A* - C.