My Facebook news feed has been flooded with mummies posting about their kids’ school exam achievements and UPSR exam achievements for the last few days. UPSR 2016 results were announced yesterday. This year the percentage of students who scored straight As is only 1.1% in the entire Malaysia vs. 17.7% last year! That’s a stark drop in straight As scorers, reason being change in format this year, where there are more HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) questions.
It feels like it was only recently that Alycia collected her UPSR results from school and pulled a fast one on me over the phone. That was exactly a year ago. In exactly a year’s time, it would be Drama Queen’s turn to collect her UPSR results! She didn’t get good grades for her final exam this time and yet her overall position is still within the top 25% of 300+ students in Primary 5. In fact, her grades are bad if I were to compare them with Alycia’s when Alycia was in Primary 5. Anyway, I should not compare as the format has changed this year and I must say that the syllabus now is way tougher than in previous years.
The school holiday will begin next Saturday but Drama Queen would have to attend UPSR tuition classes in school for a whole frigging 2 weeks! There goes my holiday. In fact, it’s worse than regular school-going days coz the transporter does not work during the school holidays… which means that I would have to be the driver *sob sob*
Alycia’s high school has already started their school holidays on Thursday this week. Her second semester grades are again only middling, with improvement of only a few marks for her Science subjects. Her Math grade is not good, thus she will have to start Math tuition next year. I was warned to be prepared to see more of Bs, Cs and Ds when Alycia got accepted into this high school. Gone are the days when she would proudly show me her straight As marks in primary school.
For Cass, her position slid down from top 10 for the first 2 exams this year to top 20 this time (position in the entire Primary 2 of over 300 students). Nonetheless, she will still remain in the top class when she goes to Primary 3 next year. She will also receive a trophy from the school next week for being in the top 10 position for the entire year. Seven students from her class will be eliminated from the top class next year to ‘regular’ classes. This makes me feel like the students in her class are contestants in the Amazing Race where those who do not make it in the long and stressful race get eliminated! I wonder if Cass would be eliminated next year coz she is really not a kid with the materials of studying Chinese. She’ll fare well in a private or international school where subjects are taught in English. But no, we can’t afford private or international school. It is SO stressful for me that Cass remains a ‘contestant’ in the ‘Amazing Race’ in the top class next year … but not for her. She’s a chill kid who couldn’t be bothered much with studying 🙁
After all that’s being said, I still think that UPSR and PMR grades are not that important… though they seem like life and death for some parents now. I am quite guilty as charged too. When we shortlisted candidates for bank jobs last time, we never looked at UPSR or SRP results. What’s important was the SPM grade (grade 3 rejected outright) and uni CGPA. And of course soft skills, EQ, confidence and how vocal and convincing the candidate is.
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