By Zoya Parkier
The Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) is an academic milestone for 12-year-olds in Singapore that places massive stress and pressure on students, parents and teachers. The government has long argued that what is required is a mindset shift among parents to reduce this pressure, and many parents and educators have bought into this argument.
This article shows how applying game theory to the PSLE system can help us understand how the individually rational and logical strategies and behaviours of parents, teachers and schools lead to the massive stress and pressure of PSLE, and therefore that asking for ‘mindset changes’ cannot solve the problem. The PSLE itself has to be revamped so that it is no longer a compulsory competitive game.
What is Game Theory?
Game Theory is a framework often used in Mathematics, Economics and the Social Sciences to analyse situations (‘games’) where individuals or groups (‘players’) have to make interdependent decisions. It is based on Rational Choice Theory, a key tenet of mainstream Economics, which assumes that players are ‘rational actors’ who make logical and strategic choices to maximise their own benefits.
Game Theory describes various types of games, e.g. Zero-Sum, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Nash Equilibrium, where players behave in certain predictable ways based on the information they have and after considering the actions/ responses of other players. Applying Game Theory to PSLE helps us understand the common behaviours and strategies we see from students, parents, and educators navigating the system.
PSLE as a 'Game'
The PSLE is set up as a competitive ‘game’ because it is compulsory, used to stack rank students according to their scores, and then allocates secondary schools based on student choice, starting from the highest ranked student and working downwards. Regardless of recent changes to how PSLE scores are shared (in bands now, instead of as an exact score), the compulsory stack ranking of students for secondary school allocation remains a key feature of PSLE.
Compulsory stack ranking injects an unnecessary level of competition into Singapore’s primary school education system, where children are ‘rewarded’ for their performance relative to each other (through secondary school allocations), instead of just being tested in comparison to a fixed standard. To use an analogy, this is akin to a compulsory stack ranking of all 12-year olds in a country according to their body weight, and rewarding the thinnest children, rather than just having a fixed standard as general advise for what should be a healthy body weight.
This ranking system thus creates an inherently competitive atmosphere where the adult ‘stakeholders’ - parents, teachers and schools - have no choice but to compete as hard as they can to avoid ending up at the bottom of the rankings. Even minor advantages can significantly affect a student's ranking, and hence their secondary school allocation, which in turn is perceived to impact their future opportunities.
This pressure feeds through to teachers and schools, who try to maximise the performance of their student cohort to maintain their performance and desirability respectively. It leads to a zero-sum ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of collective behaviour where parents use every strategy they can, from intensive studying and additional tutoring to strategic selection of primary schools, to gain every advantage they can for their child against other students.
To better understand why, let’s consider some examples of games from Game Theory that the PSLE approximates:
Prisoner’s Dilemma. In the classic game of the Prisoner's Dilemma, two rational individuals decide separately whether to cooperate with each other for mutual benefit or betray the other for individual reward. Both individuals choosing to cooperate leads to a good outcome for both. In the case of PSLE, this would be approximated by all parents and educators choosing to cooperate for the collective benefit of a more holistic and equitable education system by not putting any pressure on individual students to perform.
However, if Person A chooses to cooperate while Person B chooses to betray Person A, Person A faces a bad outcome while Person B gets a good outcome. Since Person A has no guarantee of what Person B will choose, logically both will choose to betray each other, resulting in a bad outcome for both.
Similarly, in the PSLE context, individual parents rationally choose to focus on maximising their child’s chances of ‘success’ by sending them for extensive tutoring, since they have no guarantee that other parents won’t do so too. This mass ‘betrayal’ increases stress and reduces well-being for all students, mirroring the Prisoner’s Dilemma’s predicted sub-optimal outcomes.
Zero-Sum Game. In a Zero-Sum Game, one player's gain directly leads to another player’s loss. This is reflected in the PSLE’s stack ranking of students for secondary school allocation, where high scores for some students reduce the opportunities for others by pushing them further down the rankings, intensifying competition and stress. This zero-sum set-up of PSLE grades being used for secondary school allocation exacerbates the high-pressure environment.
Nash Equilibrium refers to a situation where each player's strategy is optimal given the strategies of all other players, meaning no player can improve their outcome by unilaterally changing their strategy, leading to a stable but not necessarily optimal outcome. In the context of the PSLE, Nash equilibrium manifests in the intense study and preparation strategies adopted by parents, teachers and schools for students. Here, each adult player (parent, teacher, school) optimises their strategy based on the assumption that others will continue their intense preparation. If one player chooses to deviate and reduce pressure/ preparation for their student, the student’s chances of success diminish, reinforcing the need to adhere to the high pressure norm.
Sub-Optimal Outcomes from the game of PSLE
Impact on Individual Students. The high stakes of the PSLE create an intensely competitive environment among students, parents, and schools. Game theory explains how adult participants adopt strategies to outcompete others, such as enrolling their child in numerous tuition classes and prioritising academic performance over other aspects of life.
This has a negative impact on student well-being. Students face immense stress and anxiety, which can result in mental health issues like burnout and depression. The constant pressure to perform can erode self-esteem and motivation, turning education into a stressful ordeal. The joy of learning is often overshadowed by fear of failure, creating a lasting negative association with education.
Impact on parenting. The micro-managing required by parents to ‘play’ this game also damages parent-child relationships at the very point that they need to strengthen and evolve into a more guiding and mentoring style of parenting for pre-teens. As the pressure has flowed downwards to the early primary school years, it has also taken much of the joy out of parenting primary school-aged children, at least partially contributing to our declining fertility rate.
Impact on social equity. This competitive dynamic also fosters inequity, as wealthier families can invest more in additional educational support, widening the socioeconomic divide. Certain primary and secondary schools are sought after by the elites, further entrenching social and academic divides.
Impact on teaching. Schools feel pressured to maintain high rankings, leading to a tendency to ‘teach to the test’ at the expense of delivering a holistic and comprehensive education. Teachers feel constrained to deliver a set curriculum in a set time, limiting their ability to teach innovatively and target diverse student learning styles. Exam performance is prioritised by schools over nurturing MOE’s 21st Century Competencies (21CC) like social-emotional skills, creativity and self-confidence. Students may excel at rote memorization and specific test-taking strategies, but lack deeper understanding and the ability to apply knowledge in novel situations, hurting their ability to embody the 21CC in their future workplace.
Removing the Competitive Game from PSLE
We all seem to agree that the focus of primary school education should be on maximising every child’s learning potential and social-emotional development through personalised education that considers individual strengths, interests, and learning styles.
However, as we have tried to explain in this article, the current way PSLE and secondary school allocation is set up does not rationally allow the adult stakeholders in the system - parents, teachers and schools - to focus on delivering this holistic education to our children. No number of reforms implemented to primary school or PSLE, or lectures to parents to ‘reduce stress’ or ‘promote holistic education’, will work unless the underlying process of stack ranking students for secondary school allocation is removed.
EveryChild.SG recommends making the PSLE optional, so that students who are academically inclined can choose to compete for a handful of academically selective secondary schools, while all students in every primary school have a default through-train to a partner secondary school regardless of whether they take the PSLE, or what their score is. This systemic change is needed to move us to an education system that, instead of encouraging rote-learning and inculcating a fear of failure, prioritises holistic learning and a growth mindset, nurturing our children’s mental health, confidence and 21CC to successfully tackle their futures. Want to be part of a change? Make your voice heard here.
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