She had seen how being labelled as 'mono kids' battered the self-esteem of her academically weaker primary school pupils.
'Monolingual just sounded so awful - as if they were sub-normal. EM3 seemed like a more neutral term,' she said.
But her enthusiasm was short-lived.
Although 'EM3 kids' sounded better than 'mono kids', it was still name-calling, still a label that they were the weakest of the lot.
'I taught for more than 10 years in a primary school. It was heart-wrenching to see how we wrecked the self-esteem of young kids through streaming. I could have written the script for Jack Neo?s movie, I Not Stupid,' she said.
That?s why the mother of three, whose youngest child is in Primary 2, was cautious about the changes announced yesterday.
Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, speaking at the annual workplan seminar for principals, announced that the unpopular EM3 stream will be scrapped from 2008.
Pupils will instead be banded at the end of Primary 4 according to their strengths in different subjects.
For instance, a student who is weak in English and Mother Tongue, but strong in Mathematics, will be allowed to take Mathematics at the Standard level, while studying the other two at an easier level, called the Foundation level.
Now Madam Devaki wonders whether the children will be labelled the 'foundation kids'.
She is especially concerned because her youngest child, who is mildly dyslexic, may end up being tagged with that label.
But she should be more optimistic. The changes this time are far-reaching.
The 1992 amendments moved streaming to the end of Primary 4 instead of Primary 3, but otherwise the system, introduced in 1979, was kept intact.
The Normal, Extended and Monolingual streams were replaced with EM1, EM2 and EM3.
EM1 students took Mother Tongue at the first-language level; EM2 students studied Mother Tongue as a second language; and those in EM3 learnt English as a first language and only aimed to attain oral proficiency in their mother tongue.
No surprise then that the labelling of the weaker children continued.
Legions of parents called countless times for a review of the streaming policy.
Their cause was also taken up yearly by Parliament backbenchers.
They were joined in 2002 by the high-powered Economic Review Committee, which asked for streaming to be 'eased' in schools.
But the Government stoutly defended the policy, saying it had reduced dropout rates.
Secondary school dropout rates had been cut from 17 per cent in 1979 to a mere 3 per cent currently, it argued - because of streaming.
In contrast, countries which do not have streaming saw dropout rates surge.
In the United States, for instance, 30 per cent of students fail to complete high school every year, the Government pointed out.
That is why the Government?s decision two years ago to merge the two higher streams - EM1 and EM2 - came as a pleasant surprise.
But some parents were very disappointed at the refusal to scrap EM3.
The MOE argued that it was possible to merge EM1 and EM2 because students in both streams study the same subjects.
The only difference is that the EM1 kids study Mother Tongue at a higher level.
But this is not so for EM3 pupils, who lag so far behind that they have to study all subjects at a lower level.
They take foundation-level English, and Mathematics and Mother Tongue at a basic proficiency level. They sit for a modified Primary School Leaving Examination at the end of Primary 6. They study Science at a foundation level too, but do not take an exam for it.
Mr Tharman?s argument then was that the weakest students benefit from being taught separately because teachers use a different curriculum and approach.
He sympathised with parents who complained about their children being subjected to name-calling, but told them to take heart in the fact that several schools were already mixing EM3 pupils with other students in non-academic areas, such as art, music and physical education.
The ministry encouraged more such efforts - the aim being that the classes would become so integrated that the weakest pupils would not be identifiable as a separate group.
Yesterday, Mr Tharman reported that virtually all primary schools have mixed classes now.
This has considerably reduced the sense of alienation that EM3 kids used to feel, he said.
If this is truly so, the integration and the new subject-based banding could finally mean an end to the labelling of academically weaker kids.
True, the education system is still built around the belief that children have varying levels of ability - and they need different curricula and teaching approaches to help them study at a pace they can handle.
But the new refinements are grounded in the understanding that few students are exceptional in every area, and few students are weak in every subject.
So, even if a child lags behind in primary school and ends up in the weakest class, it need not label him for life.
The system has been made fluid, so that even the weaker pupils can take the subjects they are strong in at a higher level.
Students are not held back forever - they can start slow, but catch up later.
So, Madam Devaki?s daughter may indeed lag behind her classmates and have to take some of the subjects at the foundation level.
But once she catches up with her peers, she can go as fast and far as anyone else.