Only 9 As and 2 A+? 'Must work harder', says teacher

"Must work harder for better results. There is still room for improvement."

Does this sound familiar to you?

Well this was written on a report card by Woodlands Primary School dated '25/09/1997', and posted on the mrbrown Facebook page yesterday (Oct 10).

Captioned "Only 99/100? Why not 100/100?", the post went viral in less than a day, and spurred discussion among many netizens.

The discussion came about mainly due to the irony between "much room for improvement" and the string of As and two A*s on the student's report card.

Mr Brown added that he likes "a teacher who knows her students and sets high standards".

Here's how some of the netizens feel:

"The student has 4 subjects that are just a couple more marks to A*. if what we are seeing is a top student, then there's room for improvement. shouldn't the student strive for that bit more then? and most teachers would agree that those few marks would require a lot more work."

"Pls forgive the teacher, they have to write remarks on so many report book so have to use default scripts."

"Still happening even until now. The kiasu parents unfortunately also join in to make this kind of comment. No wonder so many students have committed suicide over these years due to pressure even when they didn't fail."

"This is just a teacher who knows the student's full potential (maybe a straight A* student) and that he/she can do better eventually at PSLE. And this high-achieving student probably ended up with a score good enough to enter the top secondary schools. Just like parenting, motivation must be given according to whether the child is academically, aesthetically or sports inclined."

What do you think about this?