2008 Madrasahs PSLE Results

Congratulations to the Madrasahs on this year’s PSLE examination results. But don’t celebrate too soon as numbers have clearly indicated that while they have delivered quantity, they have failed to match up on quality.


Singapore's top Malay student this year. Photo by Berita Harian

2008 marks a major milestone in Islamic education in Singapore. The Government has mandated that from this year onwards, pupils studying in the nation’s Madrasahs will have to go through the National Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE). This is the first rite of passage that every 12-year-old student in Singapore goes through for the rest their academic journeys. Prior to this regulation, the majority of Madrasahs’ students did not go through the exams.

The mandate has been enacted to ensure that the Singapore’s Madrasahs deliver a certain level of quality before they are allowed to continue taking in students into its helms. After all, Madrasahs in the nation have long been perceived to deliver students of inferior academic quality when compared to their peers from National schools.

But that perception was shattered yesterday with the release of the 2008 PSLE results. 98% of students studying in Madrasahs passed the exams. A commendable figure given that the national figure stands at a slightly lower 97.1 %

Singapore’s Malay media was quick to hail the achievement. Berita Harian, the national Malays newspaper, carried the headline “98% Madrasahs Students Passed PSLE” in bold letterings across its front page. Interviews with students, parents and teachers on TV trumpeted the results as tangible evidence that Madrasahs student can do as well, if not better, than their national school counterparts.

But the reality is Madrasahs may be getting a little ahead of themselves in declaring victory. 98% in this context is, statistically speaking, a figure of quantity rather than a figure of quality. What the figure tells us is that the Madrasahs have delivered more students who qualify for post-primary education, than the national average.

But what do the statistics say about the quality of Madrasahs students delivered? For this, we need to drill down a little deeper into the statistics that nobody seemed to have paid much attention to.

After the PSLE results, pupils are streamed into three academic pens, according to their academic results. Those who deliver exceptional results are channelled into the Express stream while the weaker ones are funnelled into the Normal streams. The Normal stream is further segmented into Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical), the latter being a channel for the technically-inclined.

This is where the Madrasahs have failed to deliver up to national standards. For students in the Madrasahs cohort, only 41% of its pupils delivered results that qualified them for the Express stream. This is far short of the national figure whereby 64% of students qualified.

The majority of Madrasahs students (57%) who took the PSLE only managed to make it to the Normal streams. Of these, 48% went into Normal Academic while 9% went into Normal Technical. This is a stark comparison to the National schools whereby only 33% of their cohort was funnelled into the Normal streams.

There is still a fair bit of work to do. I sure do hope that the proud proclamations by the teachers, parents and students that we saw on TV last night was not a signal that the Madrasahs are in a state-of-mind where they think that they “have arrived”.

Madrasahs have done well indeed in delivering the quantity and we should be proud that they have gotten this far. In fact the beacons of Islamic Education in Singapore should receive all the support it can get from us. But the time is not right in blowing the trumpet as yet. The community must remain focus in helping them deliver on quality and not just quantity in the next examinations.