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, primary, school, leaving and/or examination:

    At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.
    —Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)

    A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
    Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)

    He had first discovered a propensity for savagery in the acrid lavatories of a minor English public school where he used to press the heads of the new boys into the ceramic bowl and pull the flush upon them to drown their gurgling protests.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)

    I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.
    Peter De Vries (b. 1910)

    Maybe it’s understandable what a history of failures America’s foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of people who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America’s miniature schnauzer—a noisy but small and useless part of the national household.
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)