SINGAPORE – The Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) T-score system will be replaced by grade bands known as Achievement Levels (ALs) of 1 to 8 in 2021, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced today (July 13). 

MOE also said it will be be making adjustments to Secondary One posting and will be introducing choice order of schools as a new tie-breaker.

This restructuring of the PSLE grading system means that for each subject, pupils taking the examination will be placed into the following bands:

Under this new system, the lowest score pupils can receive would be 32, while the highest score would be 4. These bands prevent minute differences in scores from affecting Secondary One postings.

“In this new scoring system, we want students to focus on their own learning outcomes. As long as they meet the learning objectives of the curriculum, they will score the corresponding achievement level,” said MOE.

This move comes after previous complaints that the current T-score system focuses on academic results and not much else. Furthermore, the T-score accounts for how well a pupil did in relation to his or her peers. 

MOE said: “The changes are part of a larger shift to better nurture well-rounded individuals.”

It also announced changes to the tie-breaker criteria taken into consideration while determining secondary school posting for students with identical PSLE scores.

The criteria are: citizenship, choice order and computerised balloting.

On its website, MOE said that if two students with the same score are being considered for the last place during the Secondary One posting exercise, citizenship, choice order of schools, and computerised balloting will be used as tie-breakers.

The increased weight given to a pupil’s choice of schools is significant, as the different considerations that families have when choosing secondary schools will be recognised.

prabukm@sph.com.sg

AsiaOne readers who have new and existing StarHub mobile postpaid subscriptions can enjoy free local data access to its mobile app for a year from Friday (July 15).

The offer applies to a total of nine Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) mobile apps, which can be downloaded for free via the Apple Store or Google Play on mobile devices.

It comes as part of collaboration following a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between SPH and StarHub in March.

Under the MOU, the two companies will collaborate in area of advertising sales, creation and carriage of content, data analytics and marketing.

The eight other apps comprise Berita Harian, Lianhe Wanbao, Lianhe Zaobao, The Business Times, The Straits Times, ONE FM91.3, Kiss92 and UFM 100.3.

Deputy chief executive of SPH Mr Anthony Tan said: “SPH is glad to partner StarHub on this breakthrough collaboration that will bring the best mobile news, lifestyle and radio content to our customers anytime locally without worrying about data caps.”

Mr Adrian Tay, head of SPH Digital’s Digital Media Group, which includes AsiaOne, said:”This will greatly benefit our readers as they will not have to worry about data charges while exploring the AsiaOne app which delivers readers their daily fix of news, lifestyle and business updates.”

Aside from carrying content from the SPH stable of newspapers and magazines, AsiaOne also boasts content from over 20 content partners including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Asia News Network and BBC.

The announcement comes shortly after the successful launch of Zaobao Keywords, a video news programme of Lianhe Zaobao, on StarHub’s FreeView Chinese channel E City on July 4.

sujint@sph.com.sg

Singapore

THERE will be one-10th fewer certificates of entitlement (COEs) from next month, as there have been fewer deregistrations caused by more revalidations, whittling down the supply of COEs.

The Land Transport Authority announced on Tuesday that the COE quota for the August-to-October period will be 25,843, 10.6 per cent smaller than the May-to-July quota.

All five categories will have fewer COEs available for the next three months.

Category A, for cars below 1,600 cc or 130 hp, will have 4,016 COEs a month, down 9.4 per cent. Cat B, for cars above 1,600 cc and 130 hp, will get 2,672 COEs each month, an 8.6 per cent reduction.

Cat E, the open category whose premium currently tracks Cat B, has a larger adjustment of minus 16.6 per cent, leaving it with 857 COEs every month.

Cat C, for goods vehicles and buses, will get a monthly allocation of 350 COEs, for an even bigger – 23.2 per cent – fall. Cat D, for motorcycles, will be allotted 718 COEs a month, down 9.6 per cent.

Alvyn Ang, Cycle & Carriage’s director of multi-franchise operations, said: “I am not surprised that the quota is smaller. Deregistrations have been lower because revalidations were high.”

Mr Ang, who is in charge of the Mitsubishi, Kia and Citroen brands, was referring to the number of cars scrapped in the preceding three months, and the number of cars which are approaching 10 years in age but whose owners have renewed their COEs by paying the prevailing quota premium (PQP).

He added that while he had anticipated a smaller quota, he was expecting only a 5 per cent shortfall.

So does this mean COE premiums will shoot up?

“It is difficult to say,” he replied; in the short term, premiums may “creep upwards” as distributors re-adjust their prices and stock levels. But car prices cannot go up too much or buyers will find them too expensive, he said.

“It all depends on market demand.”

Nicholas Wong, general manager of authorised Honda distributor Kah Motor, said he expects premiums to “roller coaster” in the short term: “When prices go up, people will stop buying, causing prices to fall. But when prices fall, people will rush in to buy and therefore push them up again.”

He said he had expected the COE quota to “stabilise”, not contract, but is confident the quota will expand again soon because the strong private-hire market has merely delayed the scrapping of older cars.

“Don’t worry, a lot more deregistrations are coming later this year,” he said.

This article was first published on July 13, 2016.
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SINGAPORE – Have you ever heard of a sofa insurance policy provided by town councils?

If you have not, don’t worry – town council sofa insurance is not a real thing. Just ask residents of Compassvale Link, some of whom have been approached by a couple who told them about the bizarre policy.

A notice, which began circulating via Facebook on Tuesday (July 12) morning, alleges that some residents at Block 267B encountered the couple, who went from door to door telling residents that they were running checks related to “sofa insurance”.

The author of the post warned that a couple, claiming to be working with the local town council, had asked for access to residents’ homes so they could check their couches for bugs.

According to the post, the couple spoke in a Chinese accent, and asked residents to pay a fee to have their sofas examined. The author goes on to warn netizens against being scammed.

When contacted, a spokesperson from Sengkang Town Council confirmed that it was aware of the incidents, adding that it was not working with anyone in the sofa insurance business.

A notice will soon be put up to remind residents to keep vigilant and report such incidents to the town council and police, the spokesperson told AsiaOne.

It is unclear who authored the original post, or if anyone has fallen victim to the scam thus far.

Read also: 8 scams that are happening in Singapore now

ljessica@sph.com.sg

Top 7 scams in Singapore and more

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

www.scamalert.sg