Primary School Leaving Examination

The Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) is a national examination in Singapore administered by the Ministry of Education and taken by all students nearing the end of their sixth year in primary school before they move on to secondary school. This examination tests students' proficiency in the English language, their respective mother tongue languages (typically Chinese, Malay, Tamil, mathematics and science. Students have around two hours to complete each subject paper, except for certain components of language subjects. Students answer multiple choice questions by shading their responses on a standardised optical answer sheet (OAS) that uses optical mark recognition to detect answers or writing their workings and/or answers on the question booklet itself in certain sections of the paper

The format of the PSLE and the presence of it in the Singapore education system gives the PSLE a part in national culture. PSLE material has also been exported to other countries. Some schools abroad (such as The Nasional High Junior School in Jakarta, Indonesia), particularly in South East Asia, have their pupils sit the international version of the exam, the iPSLE, to provide a benchmark of their performance vis-a-vis Singapore's standards.

The format of the examinations within the PSLE has been revised consistently throughout its history, to suit the Singapore Ministry of Education's policy. However, the standard examination procedure has retained many of the same elements throughout the years despite changes being made to the requirements of each question, the score allocated to each question and the revisions in emphasis.

On 13 July 2016, Ministry of Education has officially announced the latest revision to the PSLE Scoring System. The aggregate score for the PSLE will be replaced with wider scoring bands from 2021.

From 2021 onwards, the PSLE will have:

Wider Scoring Bands The current T-score system grades students very finely. It is unnecessary at this young age to make such fine distinctions between children. Some people believe that a student who scores 231 is better than another student who scores 230, but it is not educationally meaningful to differentiate so finely between the two at this age. Hence, by having a wider scoring bands, it would mean that students in the same band are similar academically.

Scores which reflect students’ own level of achievement, instead of comparing them to their peers. The current T-score system reflects a student's relative performance against the rest of his cohort. So a student may score well for all his subjects, but receive a lower T-score if the rest of the cohort scores better. In this new scoring system, it allows students to focus on their own learning outcomes. As long as they meet the learning objectives of the curriculum, they will score the corresponding achievement level. This is the breakdown of the AL grade:

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