Right after the Education Ministry's (MOE) announcement last month that it would be reducing the number of examinations for students in primary and secondary schools, tuition agency Gavin's Tuition quickly surveyed some of its students' parents to find out what they thought of the move.
Over 130 parents responded: While they appreciated the ministry's move to reduce stress on students, an overwhelming majority (90 per cent) said they were concerned this would make it harder for them to assess how their child was doing in school.
The reduction of mid-year examinations would not provide them with "a true gauge" of the child's academic performance in the earlier part of the school year, and they feared that it would lead to a "nasty surprise" at the year-end examinations, said the tuition centre's director Gavin Ng.
He added that parents whom he has spoken to were also largely in favour of keeping the centre's in-house mid-year and end-of-year examinations, which are set by its tutors, even though the schools are removing such examinations for certain levels.
And he has plans to meet the demand: Next year, the tuition centre is officially making available its in-house exams to students who are not enrolled with the centre. Anyone will be able sign up to take the exams for a fee.
He is also piloting a series of classes, known as "stress-free learning programmes" which focus "less on drilling" and more on experiential lessons, such as learning about robotics and coding.
More at No exams? No problem! Some tuition centres rush in to fill gap, soothe anxious parents
Over 130 parents responded: While they appreciated the ministry's move to reduce stress on students, an overwhelming majority (90 per cent) said they were concerned this would make it harder for them to assess how their child was doing in school.
The reduction of mid-year examinations would not provide them with "a true gauge" of the child's academic performance in the earlier part of the school year, and they feared that it would lead to a "nasty surprise" at the year-end examinations, said the tuition centre's director Gavin Ng.
He added that parents whom he has spoken to were also largely in favour of keeping the centre's in-house mid-year and end-of-year examinations, which are set by its tutors, even though the schools are removing such examinations for certain levels.
And he has plans to meet the demand: Next year, the tuition centre is officially making available its in-house exams to students who are not enrolled with the centre. Anyone will be able sign up to take the exams for a fee.
He is also piloting a series of classes, known as "stress-free learning programmes" which focus "less on drilling" and more on experiential lessons, such as learning about robotics and coding.
More at No exams? No problem! Some tuition centres rush in to fill gap, soothe anxious parents
