As a parent of parents, and a teacher of teachers and many other professionals, I don’t agree that the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) be scrapped at all.

The other non-academic achievements can be accorded to students in the form of relevant awards and certificates.

The UPSR is necessary to assess the academic ability and strength of the Year Six children and to measure their ability to cope with secondary academic work.

Whatever stress a child faces is mostly caused by ‘kiasu’ parents, school heads or teachers.

During my days in primary school, we had to pass the Common Entrance Exam to qualify for a place in Form 1, and mind you, only 30 percent of those who sat for the exam qualified to get into Form 1. Was there any stress? Maybe a bit, but, again, whatever stress there was, it was up to the school authorities to handle and prepare the children to do well, or otherwise.

Parents during those early days did not interfere with how a school was run. Parents then were mostly illiterate or, at best, semi-literate. They just trusted their children’s teachers, somehow.

Scrapping the UPSR may cause children to lose interest in all things academic. There is no proof that they will be better children/students by scrapping UPSR, or is there? A moderate amount of pressure is good for everyone - it builds and instills self-discipline, I believe.

I remember sailing through Year Six with no sweat, and no stress, for most of us in my generation. Why the ‘stress’ problem among our modern IT-savvy primary school children today? Go for the root cause of this so-called ‘stress’.

I believe children today are pressured and compelled by adults to ‘perform’ and do exceedingly well academically, but devoid of clear purpose and meaning except to win the praises/recognition of the adults around them and to make the same adults ‘feel proud’ and ‘good’, and that, to me, is not good or healthy.

Worse, parents, schools and teachers are competing to see whose children/students are ‘smarter or brighter’, which school is the best or better.

Our children need to have/know a better and greater sense of direction and higher purpose in what they are studying! The last thing a nation needs is a ‘kiasu’ society! Don’t get me wrong - it’s good to be competitive, but to be ‘kiasu’ is unhealthy and very damaging.

Adults must understand that life isn’t about performance or excellence in school, be it academics or non-academics.

Life has got to be fun. Studying has got to be fun. School has got to be fun. If the fun ingredient/element is removed from school and studying, who wants to go to school? Even UPSR (or any so-called exam) has got to be fun. Fun takes away the sting of stress.

UPSR should stay, till we have a proven and better alternative.