It’s been reported that 71 per cent of Normal Academic 12,000 N Level student cohort will be promoted to Sec 5 Normal Academic this year, while 99.3 per cent of them were awarded the N-level certificate.
It got me wondering what happens to the other 29 per cent and 0.7 per cent who stumbled, and kinda got me reminiscing at my own GCE ‘N’ Level journey …
If there’s part of my life that I wish that could be relived and done differently … is my choice of streaming back when I was still schooling.
I considered my schooling stint of taking the GCE ‘N’ Level, before proceeding taking my ‘O’s, the two years at ITE, and six months plus of idling around after graduating from ITE Dover as my lost years.
In fact I did qualified for the four years of express stream education, but duh this Uncle couldn’t tell the difference between N’s and O’s, and opted for four years in the normal technical stream … haha.
In all if I’ve made the right and informed choices, I could have been out in the workforce and establishing my career much much younger. That erroneous decision in my earlier schooling years had a domino effect which led to my so called lost years.
I just wish the local schooling system would just abolish such streaming, and have just one certificate diploma for our high school.
Such streaming in my opinion segregates such students, and issues and stigma being attached of being streamed to a perceived underachiever class. Such students are also deemed more vocationally hands-on, and less academia inclined.
All I can say that’s nonsense.
Personally for my case, I’ve always been bright, but without the push, and stable home support, well I was just coasting in class. No one has ever been concerned about my grades, so it didn’t dawn upon me then on the importance of education back then.
If only I could turn back the hands of time, but sometimes what we wish, want and need ain’t that black-and-white eh …
