Madrasah pupils did well in PSLE, says minister

The performance of pupils at six madrasahs during this year's Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) was 'commendable', said Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim.

'I am heartened to note that the overall performance of our madrasah pupils was on par with that of the mainstream schools,' said Dr Yaacob, who is also Minister for the Environment and Water Resources.

He was speaking at the 50th anniversary celebrations of Madrasah Wak Tanjong at Sims Avenue yesterday, two days after the release of the PSLE results.

This year marked the first time it was compulsory for pupils from Islamic religious schools or madrasahs to sit for the exam, although many have been doing so in the past five years.

Of the 50,206 pupils who sat for the PSLE this year, 321 were from madrasahs.

Ninety-eight per cent of madrasah pupils qualified for secondary education, against 97 per cent from national schools. But only 41 per cent of madrasah pupils did well enough to make it to the express course, against 64 per cent from mainstream schools.

Dr Yaacob said education in a madrasah is different from that in a national school, and 'we cannot conclude that the madrasah is suited for all students'.

Wak Tanjong is one of two madrasahs which did not meet the benchmarks set by the Education Ministry for pupils outside national schools.

Madrasah pupils must score above the average PSLE aggregate score of the merged EM1 and EM2 streams of Malay-Muslim pupils in the six lowest-performing national schools.

Madrasahs that fail to achieve such results at least twice in every three-year assessment period from this year will not be able to admit new Primary 1 pupils.

Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) president Alami Musa, who was at yesterday's event, said the recent PSLE was a good experience for the madrasahs.

Together with the schools, Muis will be analysing the results and looking into specific areas, such as the length of curriculum time for English, mathematics and science subjects.