Let’s Talk About Singapore’s Infamous Four-Letter Acronym
How the PSLE led us to create our own digital product using the human-centered approach
Amidst the uncertainties of a pandemic that makes one’s emotions go up and down — depending on how many people can dine in or what is the size of the group we are allowed to gather — there is another emotional roller coaster ride I’m going through this year. I am a PSLE mum. (Yes, a PSLE mum has been apparently a thing since 2015.)
On top of Covid-19 concerns in 2021, it’s also the year where a cohort of 12-year-olds will take their Primary Six Leaving Examination (PSLE) in Singapore with a totally new scoring system, where both parents and students don’t know much on what to expect. It’s no wonder that I, along with other fellow PSLE parents, am riddled with anxiety.
So, what is the PSLE?
The first PSLE was held in November 1960. Over the years, this national exam is a topic that never fails to get Singaporeans triggered. The age-old story of how our PSLE score equates to a successful future has become so deeply ingrained in our hearts that, unfortunately, just mentioning the four acronyms will send varying degrees of chills down our spines. It brings to mind the immense stress parents and their children go through to achieve that perfect score.
The PSLE has become a national fixation, one where many working mothers resort to quitting their jobs or switching to part-time work, just so they could guide their children’s preparation for it. Fast forward to the 2000s, this unnecessary stress that families in Singapore experienced has led many to question the purpose of the exam and called for the PSLE to be demolished; there’s got to be a better way to achieve academic excellence rather than aiming for a specific score that ensures entry to a top school.
Our responsibility towards children’s mental wellbeing
Different people would have had their own emotional recollections of their PSLE journey. My first PSLE experience with my older daughter made 2019 seem like an extended nightmare. There was a mix of tears and frustration as our relationship started to strain, caused by my endless nagging and scolding because I was worried her academic results were less than stellar. I woke up from this nightmare months after I processed within my heart what mattered was firstly, her mental wellbeing, secondly, our mother-daughter relationship, and thirdly, how she was developing as a person, less so her three-digit PSLE score. I am thankful she did well enough to enter the school of her choice.
This year, with my second daughter, I have learned to let go more. But what pains me is witnessing how although she is doing her best, her best may still not be enough according to the nation’s standards. On a few occasions, her teachers’ feedback might have diminished her efforts and negated the little improvements she’s shown, causing anxiety in both of us.
My own experience reflects the findings the 55 Minutes team has gained from our research, in a serendipitous kind of way. We were looking into the learning needs of primary school students and exploring designing an online learning platform. Our findings pointed us in another direction — students, in particular those from a lower-income group, were experiencing all kinds of anxiety at school and at home. That made them unable to focus on their schoolwork, let alone perform well. They didn’t need another website for academics.
Instead, we dug deeper into the issues of mental health surrounding these young children. Here are our key insights:
- 11 to 12-year-olds experience immense stress from school, family expectations, as well as peer pressure.
- While there are many different causes affecting their mental wellbeing, one of the key contributors is the pressure to score well in their PSLE.
- Suicide rates were increasing and SOS helplines received more calls from children aged 10.
These alarming findings formed our ah-ha moment! The entire team felt called to do something for future generations. Coincidentally, at that time, mental health issues amongst the youths were being surfaced as well by smaller communities. So we rallied together, eager to leverage our design skills to solve this mental health challenge.
How to embark on the human-centered process to solve the problem
There’s no avoiding the PSLE (well not yet, at least), which meant we had to embark on innovating a solution ourselves. Here’s how we got started.
Step 1: Zoom into the actual problem
Mental health is a very broad and complex issue. So we broke it down into something more manageable, by defining the two main problems to solve:
- Lack of support and care for stressed young children could lead to them develop mental health issues.
- The key source of stress to perform well in PSLE comes mainly from parents who, in their eagerness to get their child to do well, may overlook their children’s mental wellbeing.
This helped the team to focus on creating a solution that would deliver immediate value to the targetted user group—the PSLE parents.
Step 2: Gain empathy through research + ideate
To ensure we didn’t just build yet another app, we armed ourselves with rounds of user research, followed by ideation through a design sprint, before landing on an app concept. Our interviews with both parents and children led us to conclude that since they are both very dependent on their mobile phones, it’d be best to create something that taps on their user habits.
Our ideas for the app:
- To leverage what technology offers—help busy parents stay on top of their children’s revision
- To nudge parents to watch out for their child’s mental wellness
- To offer bite-sized and relevant parenting and study tips, so as not to overwhelm our already busy users.
Step 3: Create an emotionally relevant product identity
Digital solutions tend to come across as cold and unfeeling, so developing an identity that our target audience can connect with emotionally is crucial.
Tapping on anthropomorphism, we envisioned an adorable animal, walking alongside the children to navigate the PSLE journey together. During a brainstorming session, our designers chanced upon some lovable illustrations of the capybara that exuded a zen vibe and were intrigued by the illustrative opportunities this creature presented.
We found out this animal is:
- A social herd animal
- Sophisticated emotionally
- Highly intelligent
- Likes to cuddle
- Relaxed; they do not care what you do around or on them as long as it does not hurt them
Those characteristics of a capybara make it a perfect “study buddy” for the parent and child! We were sold, and thus our app is affectionately named Capy.
Our journey continues…
As I recollect how we started this app creation journey, my heart is full of gratitude towards the team — Adeline Kuswanto, Aurelia Harjanto, Elaine Oh, Luke Chen, Min Hye Yoon, and Pradnya Nirgun. They have demonstrated their passion as human-centered professionals through their relentless pursuit to understand our users’ needs and meet them—something that is not often easy since our team members are not parents and may not be able to immediately identify with this profile immediately.
This is just the beginning of Capy. To stay tuned for more updates on how our journey as an app creator unfolds, we’d be glad to have you follow us on our Medium publication.
We are also looking for collaborators and partners! Get in touch with us if you are:
- A parent with children who’d be taking the PSLE in one or two years’ time
- An expert in learning pedagogy for primary school
- A healthcare professional, such as a therapist or counselor, who specializes in children and families
Reach out to us at hello@55mins.com.
Meanwhile, my journey continues as a mom too, as I navigate the remaining two to three months of the PSLE year with my daughter, as well as all the other major exams she’ll have to conquer in years to come.
With more than 15 years of experience leading teams in the print, publishing, and digital design industry, Wendy is now head and co-founder of 55 Minutes, a user-experience design studio. She seeks to bring value to clients with a human-centered approach and is passionate about solving problems through creative collaborations. The beating heart of her every project is empathy and understanding the people she designs for.
