[Above: Home-schoolers Kelly Seow (left) and Claire Lee did well in the PSLE.]

By Jane Ng

THE first batch of students outside mainstream schools to sit for the Primary School Leaving Examination have done as well as their counterparts elsewhere, with over 90 per cent of them doing well enough to move to the secondary level.

The pupils, who are either schooled at home, in madrasahs or at San Yu Adventist, a private school, were made to sit for the national exams under the Compulsory Education Act, introduced in 2003.

In total, 49,856 Primary 6 pupils from mainstream schools, 321 children from madrasahs, or Islamic religious schools, 26 home-schoolers and three from San Yu took the PSLE, results released by the Ministry of Education yesterday showed.

When compared to mainstream schools, madrasah pupils were on par: 98 per cent did well enough to progress to secondary schools, a notch higher than the 97 per cent for mainstream pupils.

Home-schooled children did less well, with 92 per cent - 24 out of 26 students - making the secondary school grade.

But in terms of scores, mainstream pupils did much better than those in madrasahs. Just 41 per cent of madrasah pupils did well enough to qualify for the Express course in secondary school, which the better performers are streamed to, compared to 64 per cent in the mainstream and 73 per cent of home-schoolers.

For the Normal (Academic) stream, which sees students taking the O-levels in five years - compared to four for Express pupils - 22 per cent of mainstream pupils, 48 per cent of madrasah pupils, and 12 among home-schoolers qualified.

Twelve per cent from regular schools, 9 per cent from madrasahs and 8 per cent of those who are schooled at home, meanwhile, will be eligible for the Normal (Technical) stream, meant for the academically-weakest students.

The Compulsory Education Act requires all children to get at least six years of education and pass the PSLE.

Benchmarks for those outside regular schools have been set: Madrasah pupils have to do better than the average PSLE aggregate score of the merged EM1 and EM2 stream of Malay-Muslim pupils in the six lowest-performing national schools. Madrasahs that fail to achieve such results at least twice in every three-year assessment period from this year will not be able to admit new Primary 1 pupils.

Two of the six madrasahs, Madrasah Al-Arabiah and Madrasah Wak Tanjong, did not make the grade this year.

Likewise, home-schoolers and San Yu pupils will need to chalk up a PSLE score better than that of the bottom third of merged stream pupils.

Home-schoolers who do not make it to secondary school this time will have to retake the PSLE next year.

Yesterday, primary schools and madrasahs were abuzz with activity, with anxious students and arguably more anxious parents arriving as early as 10.30am for the noon release of results.

In contrast, home-schoolers and their parents collected the results from a quiet office cubicle on the 15th floor of the Education Ministry building in Buona Vista.

Some did not even bother to show up.

Among those who did were Madam Lily Yeo, 45, and her daughter Claire Lee, 12. Madam Yeo, who has been Claire's teacher for the last four years, explained why she and her husband decided to pull their daughter out of Primary 3 in St Margaret's Primary.

'Claire would spend three-quarters of the day in school and be so tired when she got home that there was not much time for interaction,' she said.

Madam Yeo, whose two other children were also home-schooled - her eldest, also a girl, is now studying nursing in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, while the middle child just took his O levels as a private candidate - said she had no regrets.

'As her parent, I know Claire's strengths and weaknesses and I want to be responsible for instilling good values in her,' she said.

Claire scored 229 with three As and one B, and will move on to the Express stream in a regular secondary school.

Asked about her home-schooling experience, she said: 'The best thing is that I could learn more stuff at home, since my mum taught me biology and history using secondary school textbooks.'

janeng@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 21 Nov, 2008.