Four in 10 madrasah pupils for Express stream

MADRASAH officials yesterday praised their pupils' performance in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) as a 'commendable effort'.

In interviews with The Straits Times, they added that their work over the years to raise academic standards had paid off.

Pupils from madrasahs, or Islamic religious schools, pipped mainstream ones when it came to qualifying for secondary schools: 98 per cent to 97.1 per cent.

Though madrasah pupils have been sitting for the PSLE in the last five years, this year marked the first time it was compulsory for them to do so.

The experience of past cohorts was good preparation, said Madrasah Al- Irsyad's executive director Razak Mohamed Lazim. 'We got used to the standards of the exam. Based on the performance of our students in previous years, we could adjust our curriculum and improve on our performance,' said the leader of the school on Winstedt Road.

But though they praised their pupils' efforts, the officials acknowledged that there was much room for improvement.

They noted that just 41 per cent of the pupils made it to the Express stream, much lower than the 63.6 per cent from mainstream schools who did so.

Madrasah Aljunied executive director Murat Md Aris said a reason for this disparity in performance is that his pupils have to juggle the heavy Islamic studies workload along with the mainstream curriculum.

'Madrasah pupils have to learn subjects like Arabic and Islamic studies as well. These subjects are taxing,' he said.

He said that in order for madrasahs to reach the national average of Express students, they will need to come up with 'creative strategies' to help their pupils balance the demands of the religious and secular curricula.

Madrasah Al-Irsyad's Mr Razak said they would also need to look into improving the use of information technology in classes and adopt the best practices of other schools, such as hiring quality teachers and retraining teachers.

The religious schools pointed to the success of top scorer Muhammad Mus'ab Yusof, who scored 260 with distinctions in Malay and Mathematics, as proof that they can improve.

The 12-year-old pupil from Madrasah Al- Irsyad said revising for four hours at home every day and two-hour-long extra classes twice a week helped him greatly.

He also thanked his parents, engineer Yusof Kassim, 40, and Madam Latifah Noorahman, 36, a teacher, for spurring him on.

Said Mr Yusof: 'We are ecstatic and very proud of him. He worked really hard.'