The Ministry of Education (MOE) said the rationale for the scoring policy for pupils exempt from mother tongue languages (MTL) needs to be grounded in its educational philosophy, with importance placed on the study of MTL.

It said: "As Foundation-level subjects will be pegged to AL6 to AL8, it is not fair if another student exempt from MTL examinations at PSLE can be assigned a score better than AL6, especially when many students, including those with special educational needs, have opted to offer Foundation MTL and not seek exemption.