SINGAPORE - At awards ceremonies, parents with school-going children would often go up to Ms Cheryl Chan to ask, "Are we doing too much, and too early?"

They would lament to the MP for Fengshan SMC that their children would be left behind if they do not go for tuition in Primary 1 and 2.

"And they find it very hard to catch up because even the parents have difficulty following the methodology to teach their own children," Ms Chan said in Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 6), asking what can be done to help students, even as the Ministry of Education places more emphasis on learning beyond the books.

In response, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Low Yen Ling said: "In recent years we have been moving towards an education system that is more flexible, that is more diverse."

She gave the assurance that MOE is mindful of students' needs as it reviews and adjusts curricula.

"For national exams, the majority of students will be able to answer the bulk of the questions," she said, in reply to Ms Chan's question about overteaching.

"Teachers are reminded not to overtest and not to overteach. To that end, MOE provides support to heads of departments and teachers to set test papers at a level that is appropriate for students, and also at the level that meets their learning objectives," she said.

Ms Chan also asked how the textbooks and curricula in primary and secondary schools fit in with the wider goal of reducing the focus on academic scores.

Ms Low said MOE textbooks are "closely aligned to the objectives of our curriculum and are therefore designed to support our students' holistic development, and not just for them to pass exams".

She added that teachers use other resources so students have more varied learning experiences, for instance, through outdoor learning and the use of technology.