Jamus Lim heartened by improved access to higher mother tongue languages, which he raised in Parliament back in 2023

SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim took to social media to say that he was heartened by an announcement in Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s maiden National Day Rally Speech on Sunday (Aug 18) concerning greater access to higher mother tongue languages.

In his speech, PM Wong announced in Mandarin that more students would be able to study a higher mother tongue as a subject due to plans to lower the criteria for eligibility.

At present, students wanting to take Higher Mother Tongue at the secondary level must have a specific overall PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) score to be eligible, which means that students who may do well in their mother tongue but did not reach the cut-off score would not be able to do so.

The Sengkang MP, who teaches Economics and often speaks on education in Parliament, said he was happy to hear about the change in policy.

Read also: Jamus Lim Advocates for Accessible Education for the Eager to Learn

He added, “Not everyone who is linguistically gifted need do well in their other school subjects (I’ve met blue-collar workers who tell me that they didn’t do all that well in school, hence their profession, but then go on to amaze me by telling me that story in 3 different languages and 2 more dialects).”

While Assoc Prof Lim said this was heartening because he sympathizes with people more adept at learning languages than other subjects, he added that a greater refinement can still be done.

“That said, the current approach to language learning in schools still tends to stress academic achievement over functional literacy—something that PM Wong himself admitted last night—and this makes even those who may be fluent in a spoken language struggle with testing protocols.

So while I certainly welcome the move, I think we can still refine how we deal with languages, and their emphasis, in overall student assessment.”

Based on a conversation with a resident, the WP MP had brought up this subject in Parliament last year, asking Education Minister Chan Chun Sing on Sept 18, 2023, what the justification is for requiring a PSLE score of 14 or below for students who do well in their mother tongue and want to take higher studies in this language in secondary school.

Assoc Prof Lim posted a link to MOE’s answer, which can be found here. /TISG

Read also: Jamus Lim on why Singapore has never produced Nobel laureate and why straight-A students ‘never rise to the top’