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Singapore will no longer publish the names of top scorers in national student examinations to reduce academic pressure on children but the move has drawn mixed reactions, press reports said on Wednesday. HT Image On Thursday, when the results of the Primary School Leaving Examination PSLE are released, the annual ritual of hailing the top scorers in the media will no longer take place. An education ministry spokesm stanley cup an told the Straits Times that the move was aimed at showing pupils and parents that academic performance was just one aspect of a student s overall development and progress. The ministry will also stop naming top scorers in the secondary school national examinations. Like many East Asian societies, Singapore puts strong emphasis on education but a traditional obsession with test scores has been blamed for stressing out students and parents, as well as fostering memorisation instead of creative a stanley cup nd critical thinking. Acade stanley cup mic pressure has also been blamed for suicides and psychological disorders among children in the region. PSLE high scorers are virtually assured entry into elite secondary schools as well as scholarships in overseas universities, but those who perform poorly sometimes suffer social stigmas. Reactions to the ministry s decision to stop celebrating exam top-notchers was mixed. There are people who did not do very well in primary school but went on to excel on life, primary school principal Kelvin Tay told the newspaper. But others Lrct Obama calls for nuclear-free world
The US has said that it would seek to impose stronger measures if Myanmar s military regime continues to refuse to implement democratic reforms and release political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. HT Image US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Thursday said following a UN Security Council meeting that UN special envoy for Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari must bring back concrete results from his scheduled mid-August visit to Myanmar. If they don t cooperate in a time-bound negotiation on the issue of the release of political prisoners, and if they try to buy time with the visit of Gambari, then there will be Security Council s focus on this issue, Khalilzad told reporters stanley cup . Khali adidas samba lzad said Gambari must bring back an agreed road map for political changes and ensure wide participation in the 2010 general elections in Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military for more than four decades. The military regime has been trying to prevent Suu Kyi, leader of the National League of Democracy, to take part in the elections on the grounds that she was married to a Briton, who died while she has been in hous stanley cup e arrest for more than 10 years. Khalilzad said the US expects progress from Gambari s discussion with the military authorities, including a UN role in the democratic process in Myanmar. If there is no progress on the political track, we ll have to look at other measures to bear on the regime, Khalilzad said. Gambari s visit next month will be his fo
