I REFER to 'Teachers guide us a lot' (The New Paper, 22 Apr).

Each year, many students get upset due to the grade disparity in their project work.

The main contention is that it is unfair as the level of coaching and vetting by teachers differ greatly at different JCs.

According to your report, students from Meridian Junior College had to submit seven drafts to their teachers for vetting and advice.

It also added that teachers scrutinise every draft to ensure there were no discrepancies in the data that students had provided. This strategy paid off as 95 per cent of their students scored distinctions.

Related link: » Unfair to say they were spoon-fed

This is certainly unfair to other students and should not have happened.

While the Ministry of Education has maintained that there are guidelines and criteria in assessments to ensure consistency, are there guidelines on how much guidance and coaching teachers can give students?

Assessing student performances on project work is different from traditional examinations, and the teachers' role can affect the final grades significantly.

If there is too much coaching and spoon-feeding, the end product clearly becomes the work of the teachers.

This defeats the purpose of project work, which is to showcase students' creativity and how it could be applied to real life situations.

One way is to limit the number of drafts a student can submit and have guidelines on how much advice and coaching a teacher can give to their students.

Another way is to treat project work as a non-graded enrichment module. This would reduce pressure on teachers to provide too much coaching and allows students to do the project on their own.

In order to motivate students to put in their best effort, gold, silver or bronze awards can be given and selected projects showcased at an annual project work fair.

FROM READER TAN LEE HWANG

This article was first published in The New Paper.