Students are well-educated, employable, with a sense of social responsibility, and their principals and teachers are proud of what they are doing.
This system is helping to produce a competent, creative people, who are literate and well-socialised. It is also grooming leaders of tomorrow.
Straits Times, on what PM Lee said about S’pore’s education system
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The converse can be equally true, my dear PM Lee. For the system has bred souless, unfeeling, incompetent, uncreative, narrow-mindled, ruthless, and unaccountable elitocrats like you and your coterie who masquerade as government.
this system created the Elites who are very responsible & creative! *puke*
the rest are relatively well educated, employable & underpaid…?
PM Lee said:
“Students are well-educated, employable, with a sense of social responsibility, and their principals and teachers are proud of what they are doing.”
Excellent!
He went on:
“It is also grooming leaders of tomorrow.”
If PM Lee really means what he says, then it is imperative for him to lower the voting age to 18. After all, if they have “a sense of responsibility” and are “the leaders of tomorrow”, shouldn’t we give them the right to vote and have a say in Singapore’s future?
Otherwise, PM Lee is just speaking through both sides of his mouth.
Talking rot. Our education system fail as many of times there are short of teachers in schools. All we have are those part-time helpers come in to stand in. No proper training was given to them. How do you expect our childrens to perform well. I can say, most of us just had to spend extra money to send our childrens for tuitions. This is the trend now. Don’t depend on our school now if you want your childrens to excel in their results. Now there is no joy in learning but just chasing after marks. Poor kids nowaday!!!!
There is no learning in the first place! More like PROGRAMMING!
If the head of MOE can say that they do not care about linguistics research (referring to dissection of Singlish), or in fact any research with regards to teaching or learning (maybe actually any research), SG education system is finished.
*vomit blood*…sorry im lost for words!
You have to experience a school environment. i.e. teach or relief a class to be able to attest to that seriously.
Locally groomed students, at a secondary level, generally do not know what respect is and has no direction and focus in life. At a tertiary level, many are apathetic to their environments and what happens to fellow human beings in the world.
If truly the education is a miracle, we should not have phua chu kang to remind us of our social graces on the mrt, public transport plastered with very very explicit reminders to move to the back of the vehicle,getting more people to volunteer at grassroot levels, employers seeking to marginalize the minorities.
If truly the education is a miracle, we should be ready to be open to talk about race and religion at an intellectual level.
At a more practical level, if its truly a miracle, we should be able to stand tall in the face of adversity such as the current economic crisis. We has not even cleared this level, how can we claim that the education system is a miracle?
I cant help but cringe when I heard it on the news.
And what kind of leaders in the world will uphold blindly the Mainstream Conservative Status Quo?
And what kind of true leader needs to be groomed?
to#8Sha:
Perhaps as you’ve noticed, people don’t actually respect the demeaning campaigns like the hideous Singlish rap in MRT stations (PCK) and the cartoony exhortations in buses and foodcourts. Grassroots mobilisation and marginalisation of minorities are another kettle of fish; Singapore is not alone in facing this problem, where else in the world shall you find a country with a thoroughly engaged grassroots and accepts wondrously all and every minority member?
For 3) Andrew Loh
“Otherwise, PM Lee is just speaking through both sides of his mouth”
Andrew, you’re too polite! My version:
In America, Red Indians say: White Men speak with forked tongues (ie SAY one thing, but DO another)
In Singapore, its People say: Men In White also speak with forked tongues (ie cannot be TRUSTED to PRACTISE what they PREACH about transparency, accountability, meritocracy, responsibility, integrity, checks and balances, blah, blah, blah………ad infinitum, ad nauseum !!!
the best education you can give kids these days is a good conscience. instead, we prepare them to be future money machines.
kakakiki (#11),
I concur. X2
Well to be fair, I would said Singaporeans are highly educated (depending on which country you compare us to) but extremely ignorant.
As it is, there are people I know who doesn’t know the salary of our dear PM Lee, in fact, there are people who thought that Lee Kuan Yew is STILL the PM!
Educated yes, Thinking no.
Oh and good point there Sha, the very existence of PCK to remind us of social graces tells us alot about our education system.
if that’s true…Why did ministers sons and daughter get sent oversea for studies?
“competent, creative people, who are literate and well-socialised”
Out of the four points, only one seems true…..Kudos to our dear first world PM!
If that’s the case…then why do ministers sons and daughter get sent oversea to studies?
“This system is helping to produce a competent, creative people, who are literate and well-socialised.”
Oh come on that’s just absurd.. The system churns out kids who can store and recall information, but barely have any creativity.
The system is all about grades, grades, grades. Nothing more.
this is another good reason why birthrates are low, they do not wish to see their children suffer in front of their very eyes!!
would LKY want to live to see LHL suffer? he would give up the forest for that tree…
Well educated I agree to some degree, but, EMPLOYABLE, SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE, and CREATIVE, I seriously doubt these attributes have been successfuly inculcated. (!!!)
Please LHL, stop lying to yourself. People of Singapore are not blind or stupid.
If the ‘system’ is producing (or have been) competent & talented people, then why the hell is your FT Policy so doggedly kept in place? Spare me the psychology that they keep our economy alive and creates jobs. Reality is that the employment market is screwed by your policies, such that employers shun locals – because of High Living Costs!
Keep this up LHL, and you will soon find yourself running a Hotel full of foreigners instead of a country.
Until we can get our education system to produce adults who care for their fellow men, are committed to the future of the country and are able to equate success with happiness in one’s chosen profession (without that unsavoury link to material success depicted by the 5Cs), I say we will have to go back to the drawing board.
For a start, let’s have an education system in which teachers teach, and are not made to perform political “nation-building” duties, which distract and take away precious time from the all-important task of teaching.
“This system is helping to produce a competent, creative people, who are literate and well-socialised.”
Ass Loong is talk cock and self praising the incomplete education system that focus on rote learning, grades and results and not very much on character development and self improvement. Subjects like civics and moral education and social studies teach nothing more than PAP’s propaganda and not uphold social responsibility. We have many exploitative employers that is stingy and only pay $600-$800 a month for those low skill jobs without empathising on the fact that Singaporeans need to pay for their housing mortgage, utilities, healthcare, education for their children and maintaining their elderly parents.
As for the second statement Ass Loong made, I only agree that Singaporeans are literate and competent, our education system and National Service create a generation of Yes-Men who are obedient and don’t challenge the authority. Creativity can only be nurtured when the employers give their employees autonomy and freedom to brainstorm, give new ideas (which may or may not work) and discuss together how to improve the organisations, instead of using the old hierarchical way of organisation. I agree that we are more competent than those Indian foreign IT trash that talk a lot of cock during their work and copy codes from open sources but end up giving cooked reports that looks perfect but when you test the program, you will find lots of bugs. But we have seen many incompetence inside the government like the escape of Mas Selamat, huge losses of Temasick Holdings and GIC by the so called SAF paper scholars and the increasing gap between the underclass and the elites. As for socialisation, I find that we have been interacting less with our neighbours and classmates as compared to the times our parents live in kampongs where the children of all races live and play together.
I think the education system has created a lot of hunched back, myopic, walking calculator children. Seriously, global? More like localised super slaves.
(Personal Opinion) We fail to see the big picture. This goes past meritocracy, accountability, transparency… And it goes past helping to produce a competent, creative people, who are literate and well-socialised.
Singapore is a small country. It tries to make itself big by educating and nurturing the best and only resource that it knows how to;its people. In the beginning it was doing quite well(according to people), the education system from its beginnings to the present.
Singapore’s education system is well reknowned due to its positive output of students with above than average world academic results.(reknowned by some countries). It has its flaws, however I won’t discuss that for most of you have brought it to light in your statements and opinions.
I will however discuss Singapore’s intentions and motives.
They want knowledge.
The old saying: knowledge is power
If you have the knowledge about an issue and someone else doesn’t knows, you have the slight advantage over the person.
Singapore wants to harness the knowledge, politics, economics, business, finance etc from the other countries and by imparting this knowledge to the students, they can apply it to their working life.
However, the real world is different from the life of studying. Dynamic, cruel and ever changing.
You can never ever have a perfect system. Systems are there to ensure that we run the process properly. The output is always different no matter how much you try to improve the system. Plus, we are not just talking about products and services, we are talking about individual people. Grooming 2 million, different and individualistic students. Now that is a daunting task.
If Singapore wants to improve its output(Students), it should look into how to groom the individual in their area of expertise and passion, and not just academics(covering some points which are covered)
Coming to the main point, Singapore wants to stay ahead, or be left behind and eaten up by the other countries. They want the results fast, but grooming a person takes time. Plus everyone is different, which means the leaders of tomorrow will take a longer time to groom, not taking into consideration their speed of learning and the desired characteristics for a leader of tomorrow.
Rest assured, this system is indeed helping us improve some characteristics, but not developing some(some which are covered). To be Continued cause i’m too tired
hi Ivando,
can’t wait for part 2 of it!! :)
Ivando: “Coming to the main point, Singapore wants to stay ahead, or be left behind and eaten up by the other countries. They want the results fast, but grooming a person takes time.”
Yes, grooming a person takes time, education takes time but its been 50 years!
If SG’s education has been successful over the last 50 yrs how come “SG will be left behind and eaten up by other countries”?
If it had been as successful as the other countries, SG won’t have to import FTs. Singapore by now (after 50 yrs) would have produced results (groomed many talents), SG won’t have to “want results fast.”
@Flip Flop
“If SG’s education has been successful over the last 50 yrs how come “SG will be left behind and eaten up by other countries?”
Let me get you thinking by asking you this question. Can you guarantee that in another 50 years that Singapore with the current standards of success without improving the system? If yes how so. If no, then you can accept the fact that there might be a slight possibility that she herself might be overtaken and eaten by other countries?
Try to see from my perspective. I am trying to see your situation from your perspectives.
It is true that we would have 50 years to nurture local talents. However, the government wants to do more. (Opinion: Perhaps that they are too Kiasu and Kiasee, clarify please?) Hence they want to compete by staying ahead of them. The nature of talents are that they are specialized in their areas of study, like engineering, accounting etc. The world is getting more complicated. If the education system doesn’t achieve quick results, the government is fearful that they might be overtaken and hence faster results means that we can stay competitive in the future.
One more thing to think about. If the government can nurture the talents in a way that they can think for themselves and actually sustain their success be it in career or relationships. Well do we need it to be so quick for them to come out?
Just a thought
what’s the point of our education system if Singaporean jobs are being outsourced to foreigners?