After engaging in a year-long exchange with MOE/SEAB that has yielded no satisfactory resolution, it is with great regret that I have decided to turn to Reddit to write out the full facts on this matter. Even if the matter remains unresolved, I find solace in the knowledge that my findings will be made public for anyone to see.
This is a complete, comprehensive account and will be a very long read. Do skip to the TLDR at the very end for the key summary of this post and for the most critical information.
Disclaimer:
The post that I am making is an allegation supported by substantial proof and basis. Nonetheless, MOE/SEAB has rejected the issues that I have called out (without providing evidence or elaboration). With this clarification, I hope MOE/SEAB does not POFMA me or otherwise.
Chapters
Introduction
Section 1: The Context, The Evidence and What it Means
Section 2: MOE and SEAB's Responses
Section 3: Why is this Issue of Significant Importance?
Conclusion
TL;DR
Introduction
Since the introduction of Project Work (PW) in Singapore's A-Level curriculum in the early 2000s, the subject has become a source of controversy for many students past and present, with many pointing out that the subject has failed to enable students to develop their creativity, team spirit or communication skills: 21CC Skills which MOE insists is being instilled in students. More often than not, students churn out projects based on safe topics that have been repeated time and time again, and the process of completing the subject generates rifts between team members and is usually a messy combination of different individuals' work being passed as the group's one. Just look at the complaints made by Redditors in the past on this subreddit:
In fact, off the top of my head, I can already list a few issues regarding the current PW syllabus:
Hard-capped on word count prevents students from thoroughly exploring the topic of interest that they have selected, cheapens and simplifies their topic and discourages students from pursuing topics that are more complex which may require more explanation.
Vague and unclear assessment guidelines means that the assessment of the Written Report, Individual Report and Oral Presentation is highly subjective.
Difficulty of questions raised during the Q&A segment of the Oral Presentation varies.
Assessment of a student does not take into account their contributions (or lack thereof), allowing slackers to laze away the whole year, only needing to shine for 30 minutes on the day of the Oral Presentation.
Students are not prohibited to use ChatGPT or other AI tools, nor do they need to disclose it, for the written report, or the generation of images in the report.
Even alternative media channel RiceMedia.co has written an article
In this post, I will focus on three sections. First, I will explain why PW is unfair, and use genuine data to showcase that PW is indeed rigged. Secondly, I will detail the complete and utter incompetence of the Ministry of Education and SEAB in dealing with the issue that I presented to them, with their refusal to act on this issue amounting to gross negligence. Thirdly, I will highlight why this matter is so significant.
Section 1: The Context, The Evidence and What it Means
Before I begin sharing the evidence that I have gathered, we must first take a look at why Project Work in itself is prone to unfair grading,
There is an incentive for schools to mark more leniently. If a school awards more 'A's for PW, they will also see a correlation with higher Rank Points (RP) among their students, as well as the number of students who achieve 90 RP. This then allows the school to perhaps gain popularity, attract more students, or even be viewed as 'better'. Or perhaps some schools might just want to see their students doing well.
In the same school but across different classes, different PW teachers themselves have different expectations, standards and way of marking. For example, in my personal experience, I have seen some PW teachers giving more drafts for their students' Written Report (WR) then others, allowing some groups to better amend their WR. I have also compared different classes' evaluation in their WR and found that for a similar evaluation, one group’s evaluation may be deemed as generic, while the other is deemed as excellent. Moreover, some schools are provided with question banks, while some have to come up with the questions themselves. This is but just some of the varying practices of different PW teachers.
While it is expected that PW be assessed by teachers that specialise in that subject, the PW Oral Presentation (OP) Segment can be Assessed by non-PW teachers, such as your Maths or Chemistry teacher, who do not have any specialisation in the subject. (yes, I am aware that there are teachers that specialise in PW, as well as other subjects) This not only questions whether there is a need for MOE to train teachers that specialise exclusively in PW, but it also raises the concern that the assessment by non-specialised teachers may vary widely from teacher to teacher.
It is of my suspicion, at least in my school, that nearly all students who are foreign student scholars (from nearby ASEAN countries) are given an 'A' grade. Before I elaborate on this part, I must add that I am friends with many foreign students and just like us, many of them are deserving of good grades for PW. In no way am I attempting to discriminate or pull down the contributions of these students. Nonetheless, this is highly erroneous because for the WR, the marks are awarded to all members equally and for the IR, the difference in marks is unlikely to make a big difference. As such, it lies only on the Oral Presentation (OP) component. Yet, this cannot be true, as it suggests that generally, Singaporean students cannot speak better English (whereby articulation is a component of the presentation) than their ASEAN counterparts, or even those from China, whose first language is not English to begin with. I would think that these scholars are given an 'A', to allow them to score better than the average student in the cohort, so as to either maintain the prestige of scholars or to showcase Singapore's ability to produce well-rounded students to and for their ASEAN neighbours.
Last but not least, there have been numerous allegations of unfair grading made by students on this subreddit. I shall not elaborate on them but I will list some:
So, we now know that the PW system in itself is already prone to unfair grading, yet, if there is no proof of such unfair grading, then it cannot be said that such things are happening. Therefore, there is a need for us to prove, with evidence, whether the grading is fair or unfair. As such, the best method that I had thought of would be to refer to the distinction rates for PW achieved by each school every year for a few consecutive years. Luckily, Reddit has that data. Sourcing past discussion threads relating to the distinction rates achieved by each school every year for the past 4 consecutive years, I have compiled the data for selected schools between years 2019 to 2022 in the graph shown below. (I chose schools with a wide variety of cutoff points since I cannot fit so many schools in a graph)
PW Distinction Rates Across the Years Across Some Schools
As reflected by the graph, the most obvious trend is that the distinction rates remained unchanged every year regardless of the school. For instance, VJC remained at around 88% while ASRJC remained at around 38%. This graph alone raises 3 points on the basis of two issues, the linear trend within each school, and the wide range between schools:
Point 1: Such a linear trend cannot be replicated for other subjects. For instance, the distinction rates for Physics in my school varied widely in just two years. For the distinction rate to remain almost unchanged for four CONSECUTIVE years for ALL schools is nothing short of a coincidence. It does not take a genius for one to accept that this is proof of the unstandardised and unfair assessment of PW. It raises the question of whether a quota grading system is indeed in place, something which is denied by MOE/SEAB.
Point 2: The linear trend suggests that for each cohort that enrols into a school every year, the ability of the cohort to perform in PW is the same. It suggests that the creative, communication/presentation and writeup skills of every cohort is the same. This is in fact contradictory to the fact that the performance of cohorts in a school for other subjects varies widely as mentioned earlier. Again, this proves the unstandardised and unfair assessment of PW.
Point 3: PW is a non-content based subject. It is unlike other subjects like Mathematics or Chemistry, whereby 'better' schools usually perform better. Yet it seems that the data suggest otherwise. More prestigious schools like VJC and RI/HCI (which I did not include), scored well above 85% distinctions. Neighbourhood schools like ASRJC and TMJC score below 50%. For YIJC (not included), the score is just touching 20%. Nonetheless, if you are narrow-minded and argue the other way that those in more prestigious schools tend to have better creative and social skills (which I blatantly disagree with), then it does not explain why JPJC has an unusually high 70% distinction rate, well above other neighbourhood schools like ASRJC and TMJC. Thus, this again proves the unstandardised and unfair assessment of PW.
In my view, the ideal graph would reflect a highly volatile non-linear trend for each school across the years, with the mean of the data across a few years being almost the same across all schools, with 'better' schools fairing slightly better for the mean.
With this, we have established that PW is indeed marked unfairly.
More than that, it also proves another point, which is that PW is also unmerited.
Firstly, based on the statistics, a student who does the exact same work and puts in the exact same effort for PW and gets a 'B' would have likely obtained an 'A' in another school in a parallel universe.
Secondly, PW is highly up to personal interpretation, and does not reward hard or smart work, but rather lies entirely on luck. This goes against the foundations of meritocracy that Singapore strives to achieve.
Third, it is unfortunate that in one of the most important examinations in Singapore, luck still plays a big role in determining one's results rather than pure merit. It is also unfortunate that by releasing the results months ahead of the A Levels, the thought of never being able to reach your fullest potential due to pure luck discourages and demotivates students to do better for their A Levels, especially if they have already been doing well consistently.
Section 2: MOE and SEAB's Responses
With all these findings, I made the decision to contact MOE/SEAB. Throughout this entire section, you will begin to see the sheer ineffectiveness of MOE/SEAB, their incompetence, and most importantly, their inability to respond quickly or thoroughly (keep in mind that they pledge to respond within 3 working days ).
I first contacted SEAB on 14 April 2023 via email and received a reply back after 2 weeks , with a template answer insisting that, and I quote: "If it is found that a school’s assessment (for PW) is too lenient or too strict, the marks will be moderated to bring the assessment back into line with the national standard." Naturally, I was dissatisfied with the answer because in no way could they explain why the evidence I gathered was wrong, nor could they provide evidence to show that they were right. So, I proceeded to email them again for elaboration and after 3 weeks , they simply stated to “seek advice and guidance from your school”. At this point, I vehemently responded that the issue is a systemic, nationwide issue and not something one school can solve on their own. After 3 weeks, after reminding them to respond back, they asked for my name and school, perhaps in a bid to get the school to approach me and shut me up. Nonetheless, I refused to give up such information, because I told them that this issue has affected tens of thousands of students every year for the past two decades, and that I would not accept it if the issue was resolved for me, and not for the many others out there. After 2 weeks, they literally repeated the same template answer from the beginning, stating that the marks are moderated across schools, and then had the audacity to add in: “Over the years, our students have done well in PW”. well no sh**, literally everyone gets an A or B, no doubt its the best performing A Level subject but the issue is obviously about getting an A or B, not between A/B or an S (facepalm). Okay, I apologise for the informality there, but that literally made me fume. After that, it was months of sending emails to MOE/SEAB for elaboration and evidence, waiting weeks for a reply, only to get a one to two-liner reply.
After many futile exchanges, I finally received a reply that MOE/SEAB would escalate the matter to the relevant department and finally begin investigating the issue. After 4 weeks , I would have hoped to receive a well elaborated answer. Instead, I received a single line reply restating that PW is moderated fairly. At that point, I was completely sure that no investigation had been done and the email was sitting there for 4 weeks, waiting for some MOE intern to push out one of their template answers. They told me that they would close the case despite being unable to prove my data wrong, nor prove why they were right. Eventually, I gave them further allegations made by students on Reddit over the years and pressed them to assign an officer in the relevant department for follow up. All my emails were ignored or simply brushed away. In late October, 6 months after my first email, I finally decided to call MOE as I eventually realised that a call would allow the situation to be resolved quickly. After an hour-long call , the MOE Support Officer promised to escalate the matter to a relevant MOE officer, for the officer to get back to me via a call. The officer told me that I had to wait up to 21 working days for a call. So I waited. And after 1 month , no call was made. By this time, December had arrived. As such, I emailed them once again and this time, I clearly asked for MOE to set a date and time for a call. MOE promised to follow up and after 1 month , I received back one final reply in the form of an email. In this reply, they did not schedule a call, but rather repeated once again, the template answer, word for word, and stated that the case was closed.
In summary, in 12 months,
MOE could not account for or explain the statistics reflected in the graph.
MOE could not provide any evidence, despite insisting that the grading for PW is fair and merited.
MOE could not explain the allegations made by other students on Reddit.
MOE could not reply back within the promised 3 working days, lest within a reasonable 7 working days.
MOE could take months to formulate a single line response or a copy and paste template answer.
Timeline of the Exchanges Made With MOE/SEAB Section 3: Why is this Issue of Significant Importance?
Unmeritocratic
As mentioned earlier, the unfair and unstandardised assessment of PW makes the grades unmerited. As a country that prides itself as a meritocratic society, the fact that the work you put in plays such a small role compared to the school or PW tutor you have is a tragedy. It is even more unfortunate that this takes place in the A-Levels, which is perhaps one of the most important examinations a student might take in their lives.
2. Unjustified Disadvantage for Scholarships and Potentially Courses
For instance, the NUS Merit Scholarship or NTU Nanyang Scholarship is automatically provided to students who are enrolled into non-interview courses who have scored 90 Rank Points. If a student does similarly well, but scores a ‘B’ for PW, they will only have 88.75 Rank Points. This does not guarantee the student the scholarship despite actually performing as well, and an interview/good portfolio is needed to secure the scholarship. Similarly, the Renaissance Engineering Programme in NTU guarantees an interview to any student that secures 90RP and puts it as the first choice. There are many good and prestigious scholarships that one can be eliminated from just for scoring 88.75RP, and not 90RP.
This can also possibly be extended to courses as well, where a student’s rank points barely misses the cut off point due to PW, preventing them from pursuing that course, despite actually performing as well as others who have just met the cut off points.
3. Unjust Reflection of Ability
Student 1 who pursues 4H2 with all ‘A’s with a ‘B’ in PW secures 88.75RP. Student 2 who pursues 4H2 with one ‘B’ and an ‘A’ in PW secures 88.75RP too. On paper, this suggests that both students performed equally well in the A-Levels. However, notwithstanding that the 4th H2 is regarded as a H1 in calculation, this suggests that a content-based subject like Chemistry taken at the H2 Level is as demanding as a non-content based subject (PW) taken at the H1 Level.
Unjust Reflection of Ability
4. Unjustified Disadvantage for Students Applying to Universities Under the New 70RP System in 2026
This will not affect most people here since you will likely be applying before the first cohort of students under the 70RP system applies for university. Nonetheless, this can affect a small minority of students who choose to apply in 2026. Under the new system, the 4th content based subject and PW will be excluded from the Rank Point Calculation. This means that for students who have taken the A-Levels before the new system, your rank points will be rebased (your RP/90 x 70), instead of just removing PW and the 4th subject from your score. However, this is unfair for these students.
For instance, a student Alpha who pursues 4H2 under the old system with all ‘A’s with a ‘B’ in PW secures 88.75RP. After rebasing, the score is now 69RP. A student Beta who pursues 4H2 OR 3H2,1H1 under the new system with the three main H2 scoring ‘A’s with a Pass in PW secures 70RP. This suggest that student Alpha performed worse than student Beta, without considering the fact that a ‘B’ in PW is a Pass in PW and that student Alpha had to spend more effort ensuring that his 4th H2 performs well, something which student Beta may choose to ignore since it is not included in the calculation.
Unjustified Disadvantage for Students Applying to Universities Under the New 70RP System in 2026
5. Unnecessary
All overseas universities do not even consider Project Work when one applies. Only local universities do so. It not only shows the disregard our overseas partners have towards the subject, but it also shows that students applying into local universities are assessed in part by a subject that holds no weight or meaning to a person’s academic or non-academic abilities.
Conclusion
I recognise and understand that for a large majority of you, including those who are currently taking the A-Levels this year or are applying for university this year, this matter does not concern you. It may be because you have benefitted from this system, or it may be because you are not really disadvantaged despite being a victim to this injustice, or it may be because you simply don’t have any stake in this matter anymore. Nonetheless, I ask that all of you at least recognise the issue at hand.
Other than that, there is nothing more that we can do. Honestly, petitions, spamming, etc. will do no purpose but only amplify our voices in an echo chamber.
I know and have accepted that this issue will never be resolved. I know now that this act of injustice will be brushed off by clueless, bureaucratic and incompetent high ranking civil servants in MOE. The very same people who never had to take PW when they were students, yet somehow think that they know more about this than us students who have worked tirelessly for one entire year on this farce of a subject.
My message to the MOE officers, especially the seniors, in charge of implementing PW is this: You have completely and utterly failed in achieving your vision of Moulding the Next Generation. PW has not instilled any skills in any student who has taken your subject in the past two decades, other than a common hatred for graded group projects. I hope you enjoyed reaching your KPI for rolling this half-baked programme out, and earning that sweet money which is not even representative of the ethos of the public service. My suggestion? You should try rolling out PW across your department too, and instead of putting grades on the line, you should put your bonus. It should be easy, since you are all masters in group projects anyway
Still, I rejoice in the idea that this miscarriage will soon end. As many of you know, in the 2023 Committee of Supply Debate in Parliament, MOE had announced that the Project Work syllabus has become a Pass/Fail subject. With the majority of students scoring an A or B each year, a Pass (A to E) is more than guaranteed. More significantly, a pass in PW is needed to enter local universities. No school will ever fail their students for that would mean that their students would have no need to pursue their studies in J2 as they cannot even enter university no matter how great their A Levels. MOE themselves would also not allow schools to fail their students, as they have spent over $250,000 on every Singaporean child
Despite this, we still have braindead students who think that this change is not just unnecessary but plain wrong. Just read this rubbish Straits Times Forum Letter With less focus on project work, students may lose some workplace skills. Moreover, the new syllabus doesn’t change the fact that PW will never be successful in instilling 21st CC skills in students.
But I know that for now, there are groups of people who might suffer. Namely, I want to address two groups of people:
To those receiving your PW results in 2024 in April, some of you will be graded unfairly. But I say to these people to ignore your grades. Naturally, you will feel all sorts of emotions - grief, anger and sadness. Some of your group mates might have undeservedly received a better grade. You might see your classmates cheering away while you fumble in the background knowing that you can never achieve a perfect score, if that’s what you desire. But you have to put your foot in the game and just push on for you have something greater to work towards.
To those who have been rejected for scholarships simply because they got a few points less, I can’t say much, but I implore you to try other scholarships if possible, and I trust that there will be scholarship providers out there that can see beyond PW, and beyond your grades, and look at your inward self and your character as well as your desire for the scholarship.
And this is really all I have to say about this topic that's been living rent-free in my mind for the past 1 year. It does give me some sense of relief that I, at the very least, wrote this out. If you’ve read all the way till the end, thank you.
TL;DR: (thank you ChatGPT)
Since its introduction, Project Work (PW) has faced criticism for failing to develop skills like creativity and teamwork. Allegations of unfair grading abound, with evidence suggesting systematic issues. Despite my efforts to engage the Ministry of Education (MOE) over the past 1 year, responses have been inadequate, highlighting bureaucratic inefficiency. Unfair PW grading affects scholarship eligibility, university admissions, and perpetuates systemic inequalities in the rank point calculation. While recent changes to PW have mitigated issues, it does not mean that past injustices have been solved. Nonetheless, I simply ask you to acknowledge this issue and share it if you can, for I have already accepted that it will always remain unsolved, and that's okay.
