THE streaming of pupils into different courses evoked strong emotional response. This was not withstanding the fact that pupils were at the time already being streamed according to ability into different classes.

Two major arguments were advanced against streaming. First, pupils streamed to a lower course, say the Monolingual course, would have reduced access to higher education. This argument derived from an egalitarian philosophy which did not recognize differences in human ability, thereby equating “equality of opportunity” with “equality of outcome”. It had as its implicit assumption that opportunity lies in exposure to a given curriculum. Hence, the higher the curriculum made available to a particular child, the greater would be his opportunity. However, this ignored the fact that most of the pupils streamed to the lower course would have left school prematurely under a rigid education system which sought to impose a curriculum not appropriate to their needs. Greater equality of opportunity would, in fact, be accorded to these pupils if they were allowed to follow a course specially designed for them.

Second, as errors in streaming could not be avoided entirely, a child wrongly streamed to a lower course would, in addition to becoming demoralized, suffer from the social stigma associated with the lower course. The Goh Report had, in fact, recognized that for the NES to be implemented successfully, streaming had to be as accurate as possible. The Report had therefore recommended that the first streaming be undertaken only after three or four years of primary schooling, and that intelligence tests be developed to provide the opportunity for those with potential to prove themselves. In addition, there was to be provision for lateral transfers across courses to cater for late developers and to allow errors in streaming to be remedied. Where there were reasonable doubts as to the appropriate course for a particular child, his parents should be provided with the option to decide the course his child would be streamed to.

Hence, when the NES was implemented in the secondary schools, a fairly wide option band (about 10 per cent of those who passed the PSLE) was created. Pupils with PSLE results falling within this band could opt for either the Express course or the Normal course.