Wednesday 13 July 2016
My First Article on SG Daily: 8 things wrong with Singapore's education system
Hi guys, I have had my first article printed on SG Daily: 8 things wrong with Singapore's education system. My regular readers will know that my articles have often been listed on that website but this is the first time I have had something printed there. That's a new feature that they have started recently to get people to spend more time on their website and to expand their reach. Now please note that some of the layout/embedded Youtube videos got lost in transfer as I tried to email the draft over, but we're trying to fix it as we speak and the article is readable without the two Youtube video links. SG Daily is a vital part of Singapore's alternative media network and I am proud to be a part of it. I welcome your feedback especially since this allows me to reach a wider audience with my writing. Thanks for reading.
An exhaustive and passionate piece, IMHO :)
ReplyDeleteAs a Westerner, I am perplexed by many Asian parents' seeming inability to recognize their children actually have stronger and weaker points.
For example, my brother used to excel in English, Latin, Greek, Biology... however, its Math grades were terribly low - which was not uncommon among his schoolmates (their Math teacher was far from being great).
What should my parents have done? Yelling at him?
No - they simply celebrate his good marks in other subjects and support his efforts in Mat - he ended up earning a degree in Cognitive Sciences with flying colours :)
On the contrary, while attending college, I bludgeoned myself through a Bioengineering-centered curriculum: while I used to get very high grades in English, German, Economy, etc. I thought getting a scientific degree would have let me get a better job.
The result? I made my life quite miserable for a while, and after my graduation I mostly landed jobs thanks to my soft skills and my proficiency in Foreign Languages.
While my college journey has made me somewhat "tougher", employers have valued me for completely unrelated skills.
So much for the "only STEM will help you land a good job" meme.
On the other hand, I have to say I am perplexed by the attitude shown by parents in some Western Countries (i.e. the U.S.) - ok, their kid will not get straight As in Math, but what about helping him/her turn that D into a C+, for example?
I think Italian parents show a quite balanced attitude, generally speaking.
Any hope of improving the system then? It's not realistic for the several hundreds of thousands of children to study overseas right?
ReplyDeleteGreat question. Can you see how I have set it up for part 2, to answer that very question you've asked? :)
DeleteHello Alex, My elder one is entering formal school next year and I think the earliest he will go overseas will be when he turns 13. Between now and then, how do I prevent him from turning a spoon fed student?
ReplyDeleteI'm seriously considering your suggestion to enrol him in computing classes. It looks like something he will love. But what are the potential career options?
Will a sport or a third language help to value add to his capabilities for workforce as well? He knows abit of French as my hubby can speak French though he's Asian. Will studying in France if he masters this language be a good idea?
Further what are your thoughts on DSA to secondary schools?
P/s thanks for the mention :)
Hello! I would kindly ask you to wait for my next article as I am currently working on a follow up to that article about what you can do as a parent to prevent your child becoming wrecked by the Singaporean system!
DeleteAs for his potential career options - that's a topic that will be covered in my next post. Get your child to think about it, do his research and let him decide.
I like the French education system (I did study at Paris IV Sorbonne you know) but he will probably be held back a year or even 2 if he isn't brilliant at learning French. I say it is a gamble - I picked up French very easily and was able to jump right into an English-free zone and have no problems whatsoever. Then I have friends who are either a) married to a French person b) half French - but still struggle with French because they are hopelessly monolingual. Since I don't know your child, I can't tell you how much of a risk you're taking by thinking about educating him in another language - why don't you ask him? The advantage is that French universities are excellent and cost a tiny fraction of what a British or American university would cost you - it is subsidized by the state and yes, even foreign students studying in France are treated the same as locals. Such is the brilliant French system. In the UK, foreign students pay so much more than locals.
But silly question - of course sports + foreign languages are super important.
As for DSA, I think it's not important what route you take - as long as to mitigate the worst problems of the Singaporean system, to prevent it from totally destroying your child.
@Me
DeleteSign him up for everything possible but do not force him through them. It is important to let him discover his own strengths and weaknesses and also what would drive him further without much assistance. That will assist both him and you on the decision of his future track of progression.
Thanks both. He's attending classes at Alliance Francaise now due to influence from his dad and I will see how it goes. But can a degree in France bring you to places in Europe? Pardon my ignorance on universities in France.
DeleteI'm asking all these questions as I wanna think about how to expose him best way possible for the workforce, and taking in few courses focusing on skill sets like third language, sports, computing or even public speaking.
And Alex I really want to hear from you if you think the primary school you go to matters?
Hi there, here are some points for you to note.
Delete1. There are a total of 570 universities in France. That's a LOT of universities and there's a league table. Clearly, if you can get to a university in the top 30 or even the top 10, then clearly there's a lot of prestige. But if you end up in a university ranked 550th, then clearly, you're wasting your time and money. You cannot talk about French degrees from French universities as if they are a monolithic entity. Likewise in the UK, we have league tables - the smartest students go to Oxford and Cambridge and the idiots go to the universities at the bottom of the league table. Oxford and Cambridge graduates get the best jobs and the idiots at the bottom of the league table will be lucky if they can get any kind of jobs at all upon graduation. How useful your son's degree is really depends on how intelligent he is and that will determine whether or not he can get into a good university. And as I know nothing about your son, I can't answer that question but as a mother, you probably can answer that question. So, is your son intelligent?
And no, the primary school doesn't matter much - but please wait for the follow up article where I have identified 8 ways you can help your son, as a parent.
The current school principal did a diagnosis on him and told me to watch for his giftedness that he's reading like a 9 years and comprehension is at 8 years old. But I'm playing my own devil advocate here, so what's he's more advanced now in reading, everyone will catch up sooner or later in this. So how can I leverage on his apparent higher propensity to learn to turn it into a bigger advantage? And is he intelligent? All I know is he has a very good memory, learn very fast and great in language, and sensitive to numbers. But very hyperactive
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I think that you should take what the school principal said with a pinch of salt - what good would reading/comprehension do him in the real world? If he is genuinely good at the English language, is he able to find work, eg. as a journalist or writer, with his command of the English language? So what if he can read well - is there a DEMAND for that kind of skill? The key responsibility you have as a parent is to identify his natural talents and then give him the right training to make sure he ends up with the right skills at the end of the day, which will enable him to get well paid work as an adult. No one is going to reward him for his intelligence, but intelligent people find it a lot easier to pick up useful skills which can in turn, get you good jobs which are v well paid.
DeleteDear Alex,
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while.
1) In recent years, in the neighbourhood schools I've had a chance to work in, we share a student's school hours between academic lessons, and their beloved CCAs, which are protected times they look forward to.
The day's lessons have to end on time, so we do not deprive them of lunch time (not even as punishment), the further afternoon lessons for those who need them do not stretch past the stipulated 45 minutes, as teachers are firmly reminded they need a break before they start their uniformed group training, or cultural activities (like modern dance), or some other club (like robotics or enterprise).
During lesson hours, although kept to the necessary minimum, students occasionally are out of school, to compete at sports like Tae Kwan Do or Basketball, or go for NCDCC (civil defence cadet) firefighting, so we have to follow up with them in coming days, say for their make-up oral examination.
2) At certain times of the year (like recently), Normal (Academic) and (Technical) students have been away from school for most or all of the week, to Polytechnics and ITE (technical college), to preview direct admission to these tertiary institutions after their N Levels (and not necessarily drag on past O Levels).
Within the space of a few years, I have noticed that JCs and universities have been replaced in attractiveness, with polytechnics and ITE as the go-to destinations for much more varied and interesting real-world studies e.g. Aerospace Technology, Video Game Design, Veterinary Science etc.
3) In class, teachers are made to do reverse teaching, during which students bring their researched content to educate each other before they present their projects.
Chinese learning in primary school has been stepped down to Foundation exams for PSLE, for genuinely needy cases, and those with special needs and conditions actually get exempted from Mother Tongue, for admission onward into secondary school life.
With the new PSLE scoring system and Sec 1 admission process coming into place, top T-scores approaching 300 will be replaced with a best score of 4 (and lowest of 32).
That's right, to reduce competition, those who score the highest possible A*s in PSLE will get a mere score of 1 for the 4 basic subjects, so there is far less to compare even as these elite kids go forth to branded school.
4) Finally, I teach English Language, which tests relevantly for essential skills which students need for their language use too in Sciences, Humanities, and all forms of communication in youth and adult working life.
For example,
Editing: being able to correctly spot and correct the whole range of grammatical errors in texts that they encounter in life (office paperwork);
Situational Writing: being able to write decent correspondence, also in formal organisational context (job application cover letters);
Expositional Writing: being able to organise, reason out, persuade and argue convincingly based on the topic at hand (company reports);
Summary: being able to rephrase for concise, cogent delivery (executive briefs);
Listening: able to accurately understand a range of spoken texts and conversations (interaction with clients and employers);
Spoken Interaction: engage with the other party on well-developed responses and interaction with personal initiative (direct selling).
5) Wishing you and all a good July, despite Brexit.
Thanks Alan. I know that article was pretty depressing, but it was meant to be part 1 of 2 - part 2 would be what one could do to mitigate the problems/limits of the Singaporean education system. I have submitted it to SG Daily today and they will run it early next week. I am glad to hear that teaching methods have evolved somewhat in recent years for the better. Thanks.
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