Primary School Leaving Examination

The Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) is a national examination in Singapore administered by the Ministry of Education and taken by all students near the end of their sixth year in primary school, before they move on to secondary school. This examination tests students' proficiency in the English language, their respective mother tongue languages (typically Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and some other South Asian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu), mathematics and science. Students have around two hours to complete each subject paper, except for certain components of language subjects. Students answer multiple choice questions by shading their responses on a standardised optical answer sheet (OAS) that uses optical mark recognition to detect answers.

The format of the PSLE and the presence of it in the Singapore education system gives the PSLE a part in national culture. PSLE material has also been exported to other countries. Some schools abroad have their students taken the international version of the exam, the iPSLE, in August to help them benchmark themselves vis-a-vis the performance of other foreign schools.

Read more about Primary School Leaving Examination:  Examination Subjects and Procedure, Language Examination and Qualification, Scoring and Post-examination Procedure, Other Methods of Admission To Secondary Schools

Famous quotes containing the words primary, school, leaving and/or examination:

    It was the feeling of a passenger on an ocean steamer whose mind will not give him rest until he has been in the engine-room and talked with the engineer. She wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    [How] the young . . . can grow from the primitive to the civilized, from emotional anarchy to the disciplined freedom of maturity without losing the joy of spontaneity and the peace of self-honesty is a problem of education that no school and no culture have ever solved.
    Leontine Young (20th century)

    Hilary Clinton’s great sin was that she left the nicely wallpapered domestic sphere with a slam of the door, took up public life on her own, leaving big feminist footprints all over the place, and without so much as an apology.
    Patricia J. Williams (b. 1942)

    The Afrocentric exploration of the black past only scratches the surface. A full examination of the ancestry of those who are referred to in the newspapers as blacks and African Americans must include Europe and Native America.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)