A short analysis of a newspaper article summarising the merits and demerits of the recently abolished ranking system. Originally seen in the pre-Information Age era as a clear-cut indication of which schools were "better", it was found to cause other problems, among them extra stress and draconian measures by schools to improve their placing on this ranking.

1. Freeing schools from bands that
bind

2. Background Knowledge
• Introduced by government in 1993 as
RANKING (1 to 50) (pre-Information era) to
enlighten parents about the standards of 50
top secondary and tertiary institutions
• With 62% of students not going to tertiary
education, needed to spur them to work
harder and have a thirst for competition
• Changed to banding in 2004 (group several
schools into one band)

3. Background Knowledge
• Added other CCA/Character Development awards
(and we all know how competitive we are…)
• Removed banding in 2012, as “Every school is a
good school”: focus more on the non-academic
aspects
– Argument: For IP schools is banding still valid?
• Another note about IP: There are already 18 of them, not
that rare so are they really the best?
– Won’t parents make their own ranking for personal
uses?
• They were born of the generation which had ranks in the
first place…

4. The Banding System: Merits
• Spurring schools to do better
• (In 2004) Banding system looked at other
extracurricular activities as well
• Students able to realistically set goals and
work toward them
• Bottom line: Encourages “meritocracy” from
competition between schools and students

5. The Banding System: Demerits
• STILL doesn’t solve issue of post-graduation
life
• Segregation of students and schools into
“good” and “bad”
– “Pressure cooker”: people want to
escape/emigrate
• (before 2004) Schools: more on academics
less on other subjects (e.g. art, music)

6. The Banding System: Demerits
• Students forced to drop subjects of interest
– Cannot do well academically
– Has to let go because:
• Time needed for other subjects e.g. Math
• Seen as cause of “failure at school”
• “Marketization” of schools (which wasn’t
supposed to happen anyway)
• Nurturing the “better” students just for
examinable usage

7. Alignment with role of education
• More emphasis on imbuing character values:
what education should cover aside from
academic information
• Removal of banding will reduce the stress and
“information transfer” part of Singaporean
education

8. If I was in the hot seat….
• The banding cannot really be gotten rid of so
long as students and parents are still
competitive @ education.
• If banding is to exist place greater emphasis
on non-academic subjects
• Allow students to pursue their own interests
• It will take time to get rid of kiasu mindset:
educate the public!