Why Fewer Students Are Taking Literature at "O" Level

I am taking my time to respond to the whole question of why fewer students are taking Literature as a full subject at "O" level (Non-nominated Member of Parliament Janice Koh's speech on the reduced candidature in the O levels).

Simple.

Reasons:
1) Principal's point of view - no easy assurance of As (key performance indicators affected)
2) Curriculum Director/ Vice- Principal's (Academic Affairs) point of view - same as 1
3) English Department (Head of Department) 's point of view - same as 2
4) Parents' point of view - same as 3
5) Student's point of view - you get the drift

Schools were and are too concerned with rankings, they say.  Students have more choices nowadays, they say. I say - the introduction of Social Studies as a half-unit has reduced the number of  full-Lit students, full-Geography, full-History students.

Social Studies is a soft option, not quite the academic stature and or rigour of the three core Humanities subjects but unlike English Literature, it will rake in the As, hence eliminating problems 1-5.

For starters, I will be blunt and tell you that oftentimes, the school's approach is the problem.  To teach it right, English Literature teachers should be held accountable for teaching skills as well.  English Literature lessons are loved but not highly regarded because students cannot connect the dots.  They are left inspired by the content taught but defeated by their own delivery.   In my mind, English essay-writing skills are best honed in the Literature classroom.  For weaker students, the teaching of Literature is sometimes poorly served by the role-playing or enactment classes that it becomes.  Great literary texts can offer therapy to the broken and dysfunctional urban psyche.  But which principal can apologise for low grades for a subject and still convince parents and students that the flailing subject is a worthy subject?

Students so streamed to lower-ranked bands (in our ability-conscious system) can handle the rigour but  the teacher for English Literature needs to be the very English language teacher to address the EL deficiencies of the class.  Separate the two and you will find that the English Literature teacher is often struggling with English Language gaps that should have been addressed more adequately at lower levels.

The introduction of the Integrated Programme has meant a few things - no O level EL exam means the next key EL paper is General Paper, so why the need to invest in teaching or developing narrative writing skills?  "We might only need it for the Creative Arts Programme types and the Commonwealth Essay hopefuls."

When I heard top schools were going all Integrated and through-train, I said to myself (I would love to be wrong), Singapore can kiss goodbye to the Literature Nobel Prize.

"Who needs to learn to write stories?"