From 2028, students who want to go to a junior college will only need a total of five subjects instead of six. The change is meant to ease academic load, but whether it reduces stress for students and parents remains to be seen.

Singapore Education Minister Chan Chun Sing sits down with Steven Chia and Crispina Robert to unpack the changes.

Here's an excerpt from the conversation: 

Crispina Robert, host: 

I was just speaking to a mom (and) she says: "Okay, I don't want to stress my kid and we'll see how it goes." And then her kid's weighted assessment comes back. She's in Primary Four and she fails her Chinese. And then (the mom) goes into a panic mode.

I would go into a panic mode too. I'm sure you would too, if your kid came back and didn't do so well in something. So the reality of it is that we do have an idea that our kids need to do well enough so that they can move on, have good jobs, maybe even be a scholar or a minister. That's the paradigm. 

Steven Chia, host: But what is well enough?

Chan Chun Sing, Education Minister:  I think well enough is if the kid has tried his or her best. I think that's good and well enough. But our fear is that we keep making our children live in someone else's image ... Sometimes we are caught in this thinking: "Why is my kid not measuring up to someone else?"

And this way of developing our children, we might inevitably make them lose their self-confidence. I know it's not easy to do. It's precisely so difficult that's why we as parents, we must keep constantly reminding ourselves that when we keep comparing our children with someone else, we need to understand our children.

Some children respond well and are fighters. They (will) say that: "Oh, I'm not measuring up. I will try harder". But some children may just get totally demoralised and say: "Why do you keep (comparing me to others)?" And some people develop at different speed, at different stages in life. 

Steven:  And they could excel in other ways which are non-academic.

Find more episodes of Deep Dive here. A new episode of Deep Dive drops every Friday. Follow the podcast on Apple or Spotify for the latest updates.

Have a great topic for us? Drop the team an email at cnapodcasts [at] mediacorp.com.sg