Good to move away from academic focus

Good to move away from academic focus

I disagree with Madam Chong Sze Kah ("Top scorers deserve praise too"; Monday).

The Ministry of Education did the right thing by doing away with school rankings and moving towards the notion of "every school is a good school".

However, it will take time for this message to sink in among students and parents.

There is really no need to revert to the practice of singling out the top scorers in national exams.

Achieving top exam scores is a reward in itself, and motivates students to do even better in their future academic pursuits. The media should not be used to "reward" them further.

It is time our society moved on to encourage our young to take pride in voluntary work, nation building and the like, and not exam scores.

Our youth should learn that being top scorers in exams does not equate to success in life.


This article was first published on January 14, 2015.
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