r-brunei-full-2014

Bilingual education in Brunei: the evolution of the Brunei approach to
bilingual education and the role of CfBT in promoting educational change:
full report
An approximation of the number of students in the ‘full’ cohort per year in the final year of secondary
school is shown in Figure 20. The two dotted lines at the top of the chart give an indication of
cohort size using World Bank figures of school-age population and enrolment in the final year of
secondary school over time. The bar graph shows the number of entrants for the O Level English
and IGCSE English as a Second Language exam over a similar period. The final line graph shows the
number of students indicated to be repeating their final year of secondary school per year. This was
included so as to estimate the proportion of repeaters that may be included in final-year secondary
enrolment figures. We should say here that the ‘population at age 17’ figures were used as a very
rough approximation to the population of young people that could potentially be enrolled in the final
year of secondary school. We appreciate that the introduction of the Express programme as part
of SPN21 in 2010 affects this approximation to a small degree as in addition to students in Year 11,
high-performing Year 10 students can be entered for the O Level exam. One can see however that
the number of entries in the O Level exam is mostly in line with the rise in entries to the final year
of secondary school. This reflects the twin successes of increased participation and increased
attainment levels, reflecting both rising expectations, improved quality of teaching, and strategies
to increase the numbers of students achieving a high level of competency in English (measured by
success at O Level or, more recently, at IGCSE).
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