Personally speaking, I do not think that lowering the weighting of the Chinese language in the PSLE is a good idea at all. Think of it this way. There are so many disadvantages to such a choice.
Chinese is the mother tongue of a lot of Singaporeans. It is our ancestral roots. It is our culture. Without Chinese, how are we able to communicate with people from China, when China may be extremely powerful and important in the future? How are we able to communicate with them when we do not even understand our own mother tongue? We are Chinese. If the government decides to lower the weighting of Chinese in the PSLE, then wouldn't it be like discouraging the students to learn more and strive harder for the Chinese language? If they are discouraged to strive to learn the Chinese language better, then are we really fit to be called Chinese? Are we really fit to have our Chinese culture? Are we fit to be the future generations of our Chinese ancestors? If the weighting of Chinese in the PSLE is lowered, it would be akin to asking the students to stop putting in too much effort in Chinese and concentrate more in subjects such as Math and Science.
Think of it this way. Chinese is a subject. By lowering the weighting of Chinese in the PSLE, doesn't that make it seem as if Chinese is a subject that is of less importance than other subjects? What makes Chinese so different from the other subject. It is, in my opinion, as important as any subject in the education system. What if the main language spoken by the world now were to be Chinese, instead of English? Then the situation may be reversed. Chinese would not seem less important than the other subjects. In fact, English might even be the language that seem less important to the students.
By lowering the weighting of Chinese in the PSLE, it is akin to disregarding the dedicated Chinese teachers that spend so much time and effort teaching and preaching these students. They spend so much time teaching their students, so that they would do well in their PSLE and even use the Chinese language more often, helping themselves in the future. If the weighting for Chinese in the PSLE is lowered, then would the teachers still feel like they are as important as the other teachers that teach other subjects such as English and Math? They spend so much time teaching Chinese, and realize that the subject that they so dearly enjoy teaching is lowered, making them less important than the other teachers that teach other subjects. Wouldn't this affect their morale? Wouldn't affect the students in the end, when the teachers are unable to teach as well, when they feel inferior to the other teachers?
Perhaps there are reasons for such a choice. Recently, more and more students are struggling to pass the Chinese examinations and tests. This choice could have been a choice so as to make their lives and education easier, hence enabling to strive on and get better results for the other subjects. However, this should not be the way to do it. If the students are unable to cope with such hardships in their studies, how are they supposed to cope with even more setbacks when they reach the higher levels of education such as secondary school or junior college. By lowering the weighting of Chinese in the PSLE, we may be actually weakening them in terms of their character in the end, as they are unable to even get past the obstacle in their life, in this case, Chinese. It may even be akin to spoon feeding them and trying to make their lives as easy as possible.
Another reason why lowering the weighting of Chinese is considered is probably because the government does not want to punish the students for doing badly in the subject but instead trying to reward those that do well in Chinese. However, by lowering the weighting of Chinese in the PSLE, it is also undermining what the students who score well can do. It makes their efforts and achievements less important.
Basically, I feel that lowering the weighting of the Chinese language in the PSLE is a bad idea due to the reasons stated above.
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