Two major flaws in the Singaporean education system

Hi everyone. Recently, I had worked on a very interesting media project that brought together talents from China, Hong Kong and the UK. I met two very different people who managed to irk me in exactly the same way. There was this stuntman from China who didn't speak a word of English and was incredibly ignorant about the West - then there was this English lighting technician who was totally ignorant about anything and everything about China, Chinese people and Chinese culture. I suppose I am incredibly intolerant of ignorant people because there is really no excuse to live in ignorance when there is so much information out there, so easily available in this day and age. I do wonder what kind of crap education they both had, which left them both so ignorant about anything outside their culture.

Another photo from my rehearsal days

But then again, both of them are specialists in their respective fields who are gainfully employed. They are both involved in the same project, doing what they're good at, both earning good money on this project - the fact that they have huge gaps in their knowledge has not hindered their ability to find well-paid work. The stuntman from China may have flunked English when he was a student (yes, he was taught English as a schoolboy in China) but it doesn't matter today as he is not reliant on his language skills to make a living. Likewise for that lighting technician, it seems like he would have flunked both history and geography at school - but then again, he is a lighting technician in a film studio, not the BBC's China correspondent in Beijing, he just needs to know about lighting to do his job well.

There is a balance to be struck between breadth and depth of knowledge - is it better to be a specialist in your area of expertise, or should you know a bit about everything? I do feel that in Singapore, there are two fundamental problems. Firstly, the balance is wrong - there is too much emphasis on the breadth of knowledge: this is worst during secondary school where students are made to prove just how versatile they are in completely different disciplines from physics to English literature to mathematics. Many students are going on to do very general courses at poly/university (like business studies) which try to give them a broad range of skills rather than turn them into specialists. Upon graduation, they struggle to find a job because they are just not highly skilled enough in any particular discipline .- they are undoubtedly well educated but are just not in a position to easily find a job. They have a great breadth of knowledge but lack depth in any area - their expensive education has failed to prepare them for the job market.

Is she an educated but unemployable graduate?

Let's take something like mathematics for example - it forms a basis of our general education because we all need some numeracy skills regardless of our career choices. So many Singaporeans dedicate much of their formal education to this discipline - but how many of us actually use more than basic numeracy skills in our jobs? Even if you do work with numbers, like you're an accountant - you are probably using accountancy software programmes like QuickBooks or Sage to do the actual calculation rather than working it out with just a calculator (oh they used to do that back in the 1970s before every accountant had a computer). That meant that most of the mathematics I have studied beyond that has been nothing but a complete waste of time. Oh all that agony, doing all that homework was for nothing I swear. In my recent posts, I talked about putting up with suffering for no good reason, with nothing to gain at the end of the day: that does summarize up my experience with mathematics at school.

The problem with many Singaporeans teachers, parents and students (heck you're all equally guilty) is that you believe that you will be rewarded with a good job for simply doing well in exams - when really, that is the same as expecting some kind uncle or auntie to reward you for your good rewards with an Angpow at a family gathering. I had a very generous grand-uncle who did just that - he couldn't help me with my homework as he didn't speak English, but he wanted to encourage me, so he would give me Angpows (money in red envelopes) each time I produced good results. Well, that is not how it works in the working world and gatekeepers are looking so much more than students with good results. To be fair, there are big organizations who will recruit the best graduates from the top universities as part of their graduate recruitment programme - get onto one of those schemes and you don't have to worry about developing your professional skills, your employer will invest in your training and turn you into whatever they want you to be.

My granduncle would reward me for good results with money.

But what if you didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge, what if you didn't get into one of those graduate recruitment programmes - then what? It's simple - just do what that Chinese stuntman or English lighting technician did: they picked an area of interest which fascinated them, which they enjoyed and turned it into a career. Herein lies the second problem with the Singaporean system. How many students in Singapore have actually considered turning their hobbies into a career? Instead, they are told, "stop wasting your time with your silly hobbies, you need to study hard for your exams because that is what is going to get you a good job." We have been fed so much bad advice over the years and the younger generation are still being fed the same misinformation as our generation. This needs to stop - young people should be encouraged to develop their interests outside the academic curriculum. 

However, the problem with the Singaporean situation is that Singaporeans are way too passive - they have become accustomed to being spoon-fed when it comes to their education. Their teachers, tuition teachers and parents tell them exactly what to study, what to do, what books to read, what websites to visit - they are not encouraged to take their own initiatives, to be independent, to be different and those who do try to break from the mould are rarely rewarded for being different. Parents and teachers need to ease off and allow young people the freedom to explore their options, to get to know themselves, to discover what makes them happy rather than just conform with society's expectations.

Do you dare to stand out from the crowd, rather than conform?

In the UK, it is fairly common for young people to take a 'gap year' - this is usually between the completion of their A levels and starting university. In this period, the young people usually go traveling, see the world, make new friends, find a job, find an internship, but most importantly, they leave their parents' home and learn to fend for themselves. It is an opportunity for them to grow up, become independent, embrace adulthood and most of all, find out what they want to do with their adult lives after having had a taste of it. Hardly any Singaporean parents would entertain even the idea of giving their children the chance to take a 'gap year' like that - when I tried to explain it to my parents, they thought it was a waste of time and money: they thought the young people should be studying instead. But what they don't realize is that some of life's most valuable lessons cannot be learnt in a classroom - you have to get out there and experience life for yourself. You cannot 'grow up' and become independent when you're stuck in a classroom being told what to do by a teacher like a young child - that is why a gap year is such a good idea if one can afford it.

Let's face it - you can mercilessly bludgeon your kids through the Singaporean education system but you know the odds are stacked against you. How many Singaporean students can actually win a golden ticket to become a scholar who will then be placed on a fast-track programme in the civil service or a prestigious investment bank? Those odds are ridiculously low - what if your child turns out to be simply average and cannot prove himself to be academically superior than his peers, then what? Why put all your eggs in that one basket, without any kind of plan B? If I had a child, I would ease off the pressure when it comes to exams and allow the child plenty of opportunities to pursue different hobbies and interests - so that the child can one day turn that hobby into a meaningful and fun career.

Do you know what you are passionate about? What drives you?

I was lucky, I did okay because I had the guts to follow my interests and pursue my hobbies, turning my hobbies into a career. One of my primary motivations is to show my parents just how utterly, totally useless my entire formal education is, just to make a point. I have said this time and again: kids, you don't need a degree, you don't need to go to university. Just focus on something you like, something that makes you happy, something you are interested in - chances are, it will not be anything on your academic syllabus. There are so many things you can't learn in a classroom - from pure business acumen to talent in sports to social skills - there's only so much a teacher can do for a student. But how many Singaporeans today are struggling because they did not blossom under the Singaporean education system but were not even allowed to pursue their hobbies and interests as children?

At the end of the day, as much as I can mock the Chinese stuntman and the English lighting technician for being ignorant, they are still working alongside me, earning good money on a very prestigious international media project. They are in a far better position than so many young graduates who are undoubtedly well educated but somehow unable to use their degrees to find any kind of paid employment. This ought to be a warning about depth vs breadth of knowledge when it comes to one's career development - such is the reality of the working world today.

I am working with the best stuntmen from China on this project.

So that's it from me on this issue. What kind of career do you have, or do you wish to have? Are you relying on your degree or are you following your passions? Do you have a good depth of knowledge or have you a great breadth of expertise? Have I been fair to the Singaporean system? How can young people decide what kind of career they want to embark on? Do leave a comment below and please let me know what you think, thank you very much for reading.