Education: Policies or Mindset - the root of the stigma remains

It has been announced by the Education Minister during the Budget debate that the present streaming system will be a thing of the past and instead be replaced with subject-based banding in 2024. Whilst many rejoiced at this change of the educational streaming process, some critics found it to be business as usual as they felt it was a peripheral repainting of the same old labels that has resulted in entrenched social stigmatisation. Replacing the incumbent streams: Normal (Tech), Normal (Acad) and Express with G1, G2 and G3 has virtually done nothing to eliminate customisation-linked stigmatisation. It has blanketed over the preexisting issue of social stigma with a spanking new label instead.

While it is largely inexpedient to push for radical educational reforms so as to ultimately eliminate stress among our youths, we must remain pertinacious in tackling policy-enforced social inequality without undoing the benefits of reduced school attrition rates back in the 1970s (TODAY, 2019). For an education system to remain robust, relevant and rigorous enough to train our next generation of students, it is imperative to make calculated, calibrated and conscious efforts to ameliorate stress for youths of tomorrow.

With constant scrutiny and evaluation, I am positive we can ideate practical solutions to provide holistic and stigma-free educational outcomes for all.

Pinning on the desired outcomes of education (DOE) by MOE, individuals should be confident, self-directed in learning, proactive and concerned (MOE, n.d.). By implicit, our students should embody such merits. However, the poignant reality sets in when customisation-linked stigmatisation can significantly impede a student's ability to develop and grow due to their own self-fulfilling beliefs holding them down like an albatross around one's neck.

Policy changes like abolishment of streaming reflects the government's unwavering commitment to ensuring constant responses to the evolving merits and drawbacks faced by the populace. However, the abolishment of streaming itself cannot be a one size fits all solution that eliminates policy-enforced stigma. In order for the effects of the policy to fully come into play, there is a need for a paradigm shift in public opinion towards the different labels (streams), and not conveniently falling back into preexisting stigma zones by correlating the incumbent labels with the new labels.

For starters, we should look into organising outreach programmes, talks and focus groups that serve as scaffolds for parents, educators and students to understand and have a broader view of the G1/G2/G3 labels contextualized within the entire education system. To allow them to understand the merits, drawbacks and gaps that map out the system, and to enable them to form a realistic imagery of how they develop and progress along their educational journey. We should debunk and eliminate any form of preconceived perceptions of stream-associated students, be it positive or negative. Ultimately, we should shift towards a more progressive, more open and objective viewpoint in nurturing and educating our people.

Mainstream media, in recent years, has incrementally reduced the number of features and coverage of top performers for national exams and instead point their lens towards those who overcame the odds and despite their difficult circumstances vis-a-vis their peers, have proven themselves meritorious. It is noteworthy that we have chosen to more broadly define success along the different milestones in a student's life. It is important that as a maturing society with core values tied with meritocracy, we must also find ways to bring other stories that may not have been so publicly acknowledged, much less recognised or celebrated, in order to underpin a fundamentally progressive and united society.