Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Educating our young

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Educating our young

I have been invited by a political party to give my views on the following. I am not able to attend that meeting, due to clash of schedule, but I will be giving my views in this blog.

1.What are the education policies needed to prepare our next generation?
2.How can we make education as the key means of enhancing social mobility and employability of Singaporeans?
3.What are the education plans for Special Need/Disabled Children?

I like to invite my readers to give your views on these topics.

Read here for my views.

Tan Kin Lian

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: Is there any Singapore brand product(exclude maybe Creative) or services that is world renowned and capture world markets?

Finland with a population of 5 million has the Nokia brand of telecomm products.

Why are we so short of innovators and entrepreneurs? But no shortage of straight As and highly paid young scholars?

These are indications of shortcomings of not just the education but also the wider political, economic and social system.

But it may not be easy or even impossible to change or rectify for a long term solution. If not, things would have changed or been changing already for the better.; January 12, 2010 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows.

Today i will first focus on the Primary School system.

In my opinion, the source of all the education system problems, pressure, competitiveness, selfishness, can be traced to the textbooks. Yes, the TEXTBOOKS.

Let me explain.

I start with Maths. In the 1960's we use CV Durell's "General Mathematics". It may be in monochrome, and old fashioned, but the explanations and worked examples there are extremely illustrative and sufficient. So in those days, you study very had from that book and try to understand everything from that book and you will do well - because the exam questions do not differ too much from the text. IT IS A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. Many who came from poor family, if they study from that same book laboriously, together with rich people, they WILL do well.

Today, the new math textbooks (designed by the so-called education experts) are very colourful, expensive, but i don't see how they are so good that even the Americans applaud it. The worst thing is that, even if your child studies from the current textbook for his level, he will FAIL, because the teacher (actually the system) sets you questions which are NOT FOUND AT ALL IN THE TEXT BOOK OF THE CURRENT LEVEL. As routine, the teacher loads the students witn extremely numerous questions which are beyond the current level of the current year's textbook, because the Exam is also like that. For rich people, no problem, get a tutor coach them extra. How about the poor people? They can;t afford tuition or extra supplementary material. Their parents ask their children to study hard, but the child still fails because the textbook is useless. Not everyone could pick up what the teacher teaches in class, (she has to rush to complete the syllabus, remember?)therefore, if certain concepts are not captured in the textbook, many students will fail if they just only read their textbook. So a good textbook is actually very very important, and most of the exam questions ought to be derived from the textbook material.

Science is even worse. In primary school they give you thin pieces of "textbook" like magazine thickness! Some high falutin civil servant up there in M.O.E. said "study less learn more". That's what you get - thin textbooks like a magazine. But when the exam question comes out, WHAM, many questions appears requiring ideas which are not clearly explained, or not even found in the textbook they bought. The textbook publisher makes a lot of money, but in the textbook the facts are extremely skimpy and NOT ENOUGH to allow a student to master the subject and pass. So again the rich people buy all sorts of study aids. And the publishers laugh all the way to the bank.
In the 1960's we have proper science textbooks jammed full of facts. They have no colour, but the facts are all there. Study well, and you are on the path of rags-to-riches. No tuition needed. Happy life.

English textbook is also terrible. There is complete de-emphasis on grammar. The textbook contains numerous lessons which in my opinion are not going to help the child build a strong foundation.

The terrible situation is not reflected in the results of the examinations. Because, there are many rich people in singapore who bypass the system and get extra tuition for their kids. So you will see many kids doing well in exams. I have a gut feel, all of them come from well to do or middle class families. It is hard for the poor man's kid to succeed in such system. The poor will always become poorer in Singapore with such an Education System.

How i cherish the old days of the 60's when the education system was very fair and questions in examinations are set in a predictable manner mostly from the textbook ; rich or poor, yellow or brown, you are guaranteed to pass if you studied hard from the one and only textbook approved by the government then.

REX; January 12, 2010 1:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Dear Mr. Tan,
I have a son who has Autism, he has an IQ of btw 90 to 115. I really feel that there is a serious lack of sepcial schools catering for this group of children who is neither here nor there. They are able to cope with main stream academic demands but need a special environment to do so(small class size). Currently there is only one school in Singapore that is suitable for this group of children, which is Pathlight School. The average waiting time is 18mths and the school fee for P1 to P6 is $500 per month (Public school is less than $10). As parents of special needs children is stressful enough and with such long waiting list and high school fee, it really adds on more stress. I really feel that the govt is not doing enough. The govt always says that subsidies are in place for those who need it, but the question is how many of us are qualified if they set the per capital income so low ($700 per capital income). Why subsidies are the same for public school children regardless of their household income and mean testing has to be used for special needs children. I just feel that the govt is double penalising us as parents.; January 12, 2010 3:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Rex comments "So you will see many kids doing well in exams. I have a gut feel, all of them come from well to do or middle class families. It is hard for the poor man's kid to succeed in such system. The poor will always become poorer in Singapore with such an Education System."

We see this as the failure of our education system(nurture) but others see it as graduate mothers will produce brighter kids (nature).; January 12, 2010 10:50 PM
INotstupid said...: Do you mean result are so important to a growth of the kids?

i doubt so.. Even if the rich kids have tuition or extra lesson to aid them to score high As.. So what? Most of them ain't street smart enough and often seek back to their parent or tuition teacher for help once they face problems. The poorer kids were force to find solution for themselves with all their creative means as their parent cant afford to employ a tuition teacher. They poor kids Go knock on their neighbours door for help, even approach some seniors or meet up a few friends and go to library have fun and discussion together etc etc.. There are lots of ways to bring out one young kids potential not only through year end result Right?

I don't remember i did very well for my O's and i'm a normal stream student even repeated once when i was in Sec 2. My PSLE result was less then 170. I wasn't someone who spend my schooling day fighting, instead i do lots of sports and involve in a few ECA, which my parents supported me and they gave me a wonderful student life. They taught me what life is all about. Respect people, hard working, giving helping hand and leadership roles.. That really help me a lot in my working life. My earnings now excel those peers of mine in special stream and express stream. Now i'm still in my 20's i've own a few properties which i think a lot of my peers could have acheive what i've now with more creative thinking and smart in their own way. My parent ain't rich, they were once force to sell their flat due to ecnomy crisis. This really proof that creative is the vital to success not results. Though i must agree good result and paper qualification do bring us to success too.

During my times in school, I've always remember lessons on 饮水思源(Remember your root to success)，敬老尊贤(Respect the old) etc etc.. Now i do see some very young student asking why do i need to give up my seat to the old and pregnant lady? (Selfishness) Are all these important lesson drill into them? Or year end result are the more importants one? There are very nice student around too. Polite, hardworking and smart.

I apologise if i did said something which offended you one way or another and my poor command of english. Hope parents could bring great childhood life to their kids and not only bing money home and ask their kids to do well for exams.; January 14, 2010 2:04 PM
Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

I am encouraged by INOtstupid 2.04 pm comments, it is a rags to riches stories seldom heard of these days. The writer is in his 20's as he mentioned. This means that it is still possible to succeed in life without background rich and powerful connections.

It is a good sign for Singapore!!

I hope that there are more of "INotstupid" around, it makes life worth living.
I am wondering if INOtstupid could share with us some tips and tricks how to own several properties at 20+ age, noting that he is not from a rich background? Thank you.

REX; January 15, 2010 6:44 PM
Anonymous said...: About ten years ago, I conducted a two months student enrichment course for one secondary school. I noticed that there is great difference in class size between the special stream and express stream classes. The class size for special stream is about 25 but for express stream the class size is about 40 plus.

It seems that our education system allocates much more resources to the gifted and special streams students than the express and normal streams students. I felt that this is not right (not fair) and related this to my friends, one of them told me that his daughter was in gifted class and her class size is only 13 !; January 28, 2010 10:43 AM