Academic Streaming Debate

Good evening chairman, ladies and gentlemen. The topic for our debate is that we should ban academic streaming in schools. We the negative team believe that this should NOT happen. Before I get into the topic at hand I would just like to rebut some of the opposition’s points: Our first speaker Nevin has already stated the academic benefits of streaming, and now I would like to focus on the social benefits. Today I will be talking to you about how streaming can positively affect students self-esteem and also their motivation.

Now to my first point: A student’s low self-esteem has a significant impact on almost everything he or she does, it effects the way they interact with others, the way they engage in activities, and as Dr. Ken Shore’s, Classroom Problem Solver states, even has a marked effect on academic performance. Even as the affirmative team may say, that streaming labels students, causing them to have low self-esteem, this is not the case.

Even in mixed ability classes students know where they stand, if they are excelling or even if they are struggling they will know how they are doing if it’s from test grades or just from observing the classroom. In comparison to streamed classes where Professor Liu Woon Chia has proved through examinations that streaming is beneficial as it has a ‘big fish in a little pond’ effect. Secondly streaming helps motivate students as it increases the level of competition between the students.

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In a class, which has a mixed group of students, the smart student always comes first in the class. He does not have enough motivation to improve himself. He has to have self-motivation, which is sometimes hard to find. However, if he is in a class of smart students, he works hard because of the competition other students give him. This has the same effect to all students no matter of what academic ability.

This effect keeps all the students academically improving, in contrast to a mixed-ability class where the students could stay stagnant, as there is very little or too much competition. So chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, I conclude that academic streaming should not be banned as assigning students to classes according to academic performance helps motivate students to achieve there very best as well as the fact that streaming is good for a students self-esteem as it will not make them feel as they are struggling and will push them to achieve their personal best. Thank-You.

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