Effect of Subject-Based Banding on Social Mixing in Schools

5 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Education (a) whether the Ministry is studying how effective subject-based banding, where secondary school students learn each subject at the level that best caters to their strengths, interests and learning needs, has been on social mixing in schools; (b) if so, what are the Ministry’s findings so far; and (c) if not, whether the Ministry will start studying this.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Mr Shawn Huang Wei Zhong) (for the Minister for Education): Full Subject-Based Banding (Full SBB) was implemented in secondary schools starting with the Secondary 1 cohort in 2024. Based on the experiences of students in Full SBB pilot schools starting in 2020, Full SBB has enabled secondary school students to interact more regularly with a more diverse group of students. Students spend around one-third of their curriculum time with peers of different academic profiles in mixed form classes during common subjects, such as Art, and Character and Citizenship Education.

Students in these pilot schools reported that they had a wider and more diverse network of friends, as well as more positive attitudes towards peers from different backgrounds. School leaders and teachers also observed that their students are taking greater ownership of their learning and are more motivated to overcome challenges they face.

We are heartened to see the early positive outcomes arising from the hard work by school leaders and teachers in implementing Full SBB, with the support of parents. The Ministry of Education (MOE) will continue to monitor the outcomes from Full SBB and provide the necessary support to schools and teachers.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Ng.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Sir, I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the reply. Could I just check specifically what indicators MOE is looking at in terms of studying the extent of social mixing as a result of SBB?

Secondly, I know that SBB does increase the workload of teachers. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary mentioned about increasing resources to the schools. Could I check exactly what additional resources are provided to the teachers to help them with this?

Mr Shawn Huang Wei Zhong: I thank Mr Ng for the questions. On the Member's first question, there are several indicators. One of the indicators is looking qualitatively in terms of their networks and friends. When they are in Secondary 1 in their mixed form groups, how are they interacting and how are they engaging one another? And when they move to Secondary 2, do those friendships still persist inside and outside of their form classes? So, that is one of the key indicators. The rest are qualitative in terms of emotional feedback and surveys on how they find certain networks are useful.

On the Member's second question, for example, for Full SBB, obviously, there is a more diverse curriculum and there are more movements. Schedules will definitely be a lot more robust and dynamic. That, certainly, has increased some of the workload and, invariably, teachers and schools will have to manage that.

So, one way that we are doing it is looking at artificial intelligence, and technology and capability in how we can better do scheduling so that distance and travels will be less, less dynamism within the form classes and so on, so that there will be more time for the form teachers to spend time with some of their form class students as well. So, this is ongoing. Each school is monitoring their processes. It is slightly different, but we are monitoring that and we are getting feedback, and we will see what are some of the key technologies or processes that we can implement cohort-wide that could be accretive to this group.

Mr Speaker: Dr Tan Wu Meng.

Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong): Mr Speaker, I thank MOE for this move. On the topic of social capital and social network diversity, can I ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary that for these studies, will MOE look at it much further into the future? That means looking at the cohort, not just as they progress through school but to the end of formal schooling, and even into the early years of working life, so that we can see how this lifts up children, not just at age 18, but even at 28 or 38 in the years ahead?

Mr Shawn Huang Wei Zhong: I thank Dr Tan for the question, and it is a very important one, because these outcomes are indicative of whether a certain programme is important: social mixing, networks and diversity of friends.

SBB has only been for a couple of years. So, this is something that we definitely want to put into it and study over the long term, and hopefully we get some longitudinal data from that. There will be a review every now and then, and we will most certainly provide updates then.