Donaldson Tan / Photo courtesy of Boris Chan
Panellists – from left to right – Tony Tan, Hazel Poa, James Gomez, Justin Ong,
Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Peter Li, Jason Soh
Last Saturday, the Reform Party’s Seminar on Education attracted a crowd of 60 people that included teachers, working adults and students. This is the second seminar in the series of seminars organised by the Reform Party. The theme of the first seminar was the Singapore economy.
Education and the economy
In his opening speech, RP’s Secretary General Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam remarked that Singapore’s current economic growth is due to the expansion of workforce instead of higher productivity. In fact, real income for Singaporeans have stagnated for the last 10 years. Singaporeans are working longer and harder for less wealth.
Kenneth proposed GDP per person or GDP per hour worked as new key performance indicators. “We see a direct link between productivity growth and the level of spending on education. Also, we have to spend more if Singapore wants to grow as a knowledge-based economy,” he told reporters.
Compound annual growth rates compiled by the Reform Party
He also said that Singapore spent too little on education – a mere 2.8% of the GDP compared to countries such as the USA (7.0%) and South Korea (4.0%). Rising productivity and increasing national spending on education are key to improve the living standard of Singaporeans. This figure should be increased to 4.0%.
Mr Tan Kin Lian, former CEO of NTUC Income, could not attend the seminar. However, according to a written circular for the education seminar, he said the lack of minimum wage led to inadequate wages being paid to occupations that involves interaction with people, such as jobs in health care, education and social service sectors. The education system also does not provide adequate opportunities to hone social skillls required in the previously mentioned jobs.
Education policy should not be foreign policy
Mr Justin Ong, president of the Young Reformers, expressed his disapproval on the sheer number of foreigners on the Singapore government’s scholarship. These scholarships are modelled after the Fulbright scholarship in the USA. They are designed to expand the outreach of the Singapore-based intelligentia to the international community.
“Developing foreign talent in Singapore’s universities is at most a gamble,” said Justin. As a result, Singaporeans are deprived of spaces. This is not an acceptable situation as top Singaporean students who further their studies abroad are being replaced by second-rate foreign talents on campus. Influx of foreign talents at all levels is an abomination to Singapore’s education policy.
Preschool to university education
During the seminar, Mr Tony Tan of the Reform Party, emphasised that one should not address issues by only looking at their symptons. Together with his wife Ms Hazel Poa, they outlined the education policy proposals of the Reform Party that cover pre-school to university education.
Among them was a through-train program from primary to secondary level education. Ms Hazel Poa said without PSLE, students would be able to focus on character building, creativity and entrepreneurship. Hazel also proposed MOE to regulate the pre-school sector and assist the pre-school sector in developing curriculum while ensuring pre-school teachers are well-trained.
While the Ministry of Education provides for underprivilleged children through the Financial Assistance Scheme, Tony found publicly available statistics are lacking in area on how money has been given out and how many families actually benefited from the scheme. The impact of such schemes are particularly important for measuring the success of Singapore education system in promoting social mobility. Interest-free loans for tertiary education should be made available to lower income families. A funding source for such a loan can come from savings accrued from the Government’s departmental budgets.
Floor participant Norvin Chan blamed the National Examination Board for promoting rote-learning. In 2006, the then Minister of Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam recognised that Singapore is an examination meritocracy, not a talent meritocracy, during a PAP Policy Forum. Rote-learning rewards specific behavior such as doing well in mathematics and natural sciences. As a result, parents tend to emphasise a lot in these areas.
According to Tony, for every 10 students in each cohort leaving secondary school, 2 go to ITE, 4 go to polytechnics, 3 go to pre-university institutions offering A levels and 1 leaves the education system. Dr James Gomez, one of the external speakers, proposed that the education system should provide access points for drop-outs to return to higher education.
In response to a floor participant on the teaching competency of foreign academics in local institutions, James revealed that he had to pass a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching before he was accepted to teach at Monash University in Australia. Spoken and written competency of the English language is a key component of the program. Local tertiary institutions should consider a similar program.
Academic freedom
James also called for equal renumeration among Singaporean and foreign academics. This should be reflected in pay scales and fringe benefits such as housing allowance and relocation packages from overseas to Singapore. There should be more transparency in terms of promotion, appointment into leadership positions, awarding of tenure, recruitment of academics and termination of contracts.
Academics critical of the Singapore government face the risk of non-renewal of their employment contract. Academic freedom is instrumental in fostering the intellectual vibrancy of Singapore. James suggested academics should have privilege of immunity. He also added that the recent amendment to the Statistics Act, which makes available micro-array of anonymised data available to researchers in public agencies, is no substitute for a Freedom of Information Act.
Academic freedom was cited to justify the pull-out of University of Warwick to establish a campus in Singapore. NUS Professor Thio Li-Ann was hired to advise the university in August 2005 on how constraints on freedom of expression in Singapore might affect teaching and research activities. Professor Thio’s bottom-line was, “Speech is permissible as long as it does not threaten real political change or alter the status quo.”
For disabled / special need children
The final speakers Mr Peter Li and Mr Jason Soh covered on education for the disabled. The curriculum for disabled children should be one that prepare them to be independent and contribute to society. While allowing special need children to enrol at mainstream schools is ideal, constraints such as the lack of qualified special need educators and special facilities make it difficult for mainstream schools to accept special need children.
A small number of mainstream schools are currently available to children with dyslexia, autism, physical and sensory disabilities. As of 2010, children diagnosed with dyslexia are allowed into all mainstream schools as long as there is available support. Only 10% of school teachers in Singapore are trained to provide support to special need children.
Early detection and intervention is extremely important in the bringing up of disabled children. Non-physical and non-sensory disabilities are difficult to detect during a child’s early years. In a recent study, Singapore scored very low in the area assessing the ability of pre-school teachers to identify disability among their students.
Read also: Dr James Gomez’s speech at the RP Seminar on Education
HELP keep the voice of TOC alive!
If you like this article, please consider a small donation to help theonlinecitizen.com stay alive. Please note that we can only accept donations from Singaporeans. Thank you for your assistance.Do you have a flair for writing? Volunteer with us. Email us your full name and contact details to theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
I agree with most points raised, with the exception of foreign students.
I strongly DISAGREE with the statement:
“This is not an acceptable situation as top Singaporean students who further their studies abroad are being replaced by second-rate foreign talents on campus. Influx of foreign talents at all levels is an abomination to Singapore’s education policy.”
I believe that universities should have an element of diversity to encourage creativity and new ideas. As a matter of fact, this has been widely accepted among educators and if i am not wrong, many education rankings use student population diversity as one of their benchmarks.
Furthermore, it’s quite a sweeping statement to say foreign talent are second rate. If you ask Singaporeans who are in unis, some will tell you they resent FTs too because they take up all the As in tests that both Singaporeans and FTs take.
As an aside, I am quite disappointed with the xenophobic tone of that statement.
Globalization has made it necessary to compete internationally, and it doesn’t help that we are a small country that has little cushion from its effects. It does not matter that we shut FT and foreign students out, because if companies really like them, they can pack up and follow after them. We can’t lock companies within Singapore and force them to provide jobs solely for singaporeans against their wishes.
This is what the education forum should be about.
To openly admit that globalization and competition is afoot and devise ways to up our competitive advantage through education. Raising education spending, moving away from rote learning are steps in the right direction.
But sticking our head in the sand and pandering to xenophobia is not part of the solution. While the public is understandably anxious, politicians are expected to ‘lead’ people and not merely ‘follow’ popular sentiment. That means communicating honestly about the challenge we face and how to solve it.
~~~~~~
p.s. I also have a qns abt the statistics…
how can GDP per capita be higher than GDP per employed person?
If GDP (the numerator) is the same for both, it means general population (in the per capita measure) is lesser than the number of people employed.
How is that possible?
hope a stats person can shed light to this simple mind of mine.
Hi RW #1,
Thank you for your feedback. I amended the caption to better explain the figures. They are actually compound annual growth rates for the period 2000-2008. I hope that helps.
To RW:
“As an aside, I am quite disappointed with the xenophobic tone of that statement.
Globalization has made it necessary to compete internationally, and it doesn’t help that we are a small country that has little cushion from its effects. It does not matter that we shut FT and foreign students out, because if companies really like them, they can pack up and follow after them.”
Sure, no one denies that Singapore has to compete internationally. The question I will like to pose to you is: how does denying Singapore students university education help Singapore compete internationally? We all understand that globalization is here to stay but what do you think the government should do to help Singaporeans prepare for it.
Compared to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, Singapore has a lower percentage of people going for tertiary education. We should raise it to 30 percent of each cohort instead of the current 23 percent.
Also, no one says that we should deny foreign students the right to enter our universities. What people are unhappy about is the amount of financial incentives that Singapore uses to entice these foreign undergraduate students to enroll in our local universities. Which other developed country has anything like that?
I do agree with the proposed increase in education spending but I see no basis for comparison between local or foreign talents to justify the term ‘second-rate foreign talent’.
I think that we lack a consistent regulatory body to protect our wages/welfare across industries and some companies do exploit this weakness.
It is indeed sad that some universities have chosen to withdraw from Singapore instead of helping us to push the boundaries of academic freedom. Changes take place over time, slowly but surely if we’re persistent. The only requirement is going in the right (or popular) direction.
Good Morning all,
This is a most interesting seminar. Regrettably, the tenor appears to be colored by a very pronounce xenophobic tenor and it lacks rational coherency.
I dont think it is productive to bury our heads in the sand and pretend as if we can undo globalization and beat our keyboards into cottage industries – to paraphrase, I dont believe protectionism brings any benefit in the long run to both citizens and residents in Singapore or even the US or any country that choose such a strategy in this day and age.
I dont wish to point fingers, but our northern cousins, the Malaysians under Mahathir promoted this corrosive idea during the 80′s. In the short term, there were benefits – unemployment was resolved; local firms benefited, but in the long run, it worked against them. And they are still paying for it today, in their firms, universities and institutions – These days Proton is still a laughing joke in the auto industry. Why? It failed to benchmark itself internationally against the best manufacturers in the world. So what we have today is a firm that is still manufacturing and marketing 25 year old cars!
I have seen the same thing with gaming. When diversity and breadth is constricted under the short term justification of protectionism, it leads to only the Kampong hero syndrome, you are great providing you dont swim in the blue waters, result: you can never upgrade either your skills, technology and thoughtware on a global level – that is no good as Singapore does not have the critical mass in terms of population to absorb mediocrity, if you China, India or Indonesia – then I say, go for it, but with us, if we ever go down that road, its really a dead end. Long run, if protectionism leaches into the idea of the prescriptive cure of our times, it corrodes and what you are likely to end up with is stasis and a fossilized society that only looks inwards instead of onwards. This is no good and applies to businesses and education alike.
You can even say it is an allegory of the signs of our confused times, so I can understand perfectly if people are concerned about the influx of foreigners, but I remain confused as to what other solutions may be the “best,” as a substitute to produce good results.
May I invite all of you to read this essay. It describes poignantly the times we are living in, I hope this will put the matter in a better perspective to add value to this report.
http://dotseng.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/how-long-can-singapore-remain-a-welfare-free-state/
We are living in interesting times, my friends.
Do have a productive week ahead. And do excuse the long winded reply, but this is serious and I hope this will bring light to what is obviously a very interesting discussion.
Thanks
SD (The Internet Officer of the Internet – sponsored by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild)
Quote Singaporedaddy: “that is no good as Singapore does not have the critical mass in terms of population to absorb mediocrity”
I couldn’t agree more with this statement.
Our education has indeed changed over time to instil creativity and other soft skills among the young, though we are still working on lessening the exam burden.
I was also thinking that the lack of market size may be one of the reasons why some universities have decided to pull out of Singapore. While I find the term ‘freedom of speech’ to be highly attractive, I think that taking care and great responsibility in speaking is even more so (given the recent error in the Himalayan climate report that undermined research credibility).
Why call us ‘xenophobic’? I only know one thing: we have to do the right thing for Singapore because Singapore is for Singaporeans. We will protect and grow our people, not sell them out. The word xenophobic is not in my dictionary. Thus, anything other than Singapore for Singaporeans is out of my focus.
Why call us ‘xenophobic’? I only know one thing: we have to do the right thing for Singapore because Singapore is for Singaporeans. We will protect and grow our people, not sell them out. The word xenophobic is not in my dictionary. Thus, anything other than Singapore for Singaporeans is out of my focus. Full stop
Hello again,
It gives me little pleasure to point out certain serious anomalies in the “Compound annual growth rates compiled by the Reform Party,” – Firstly, it the assumptions dont take into account population mass, infrastructural assets along with at least 10 other key drivers which may provide a better picture.
This is hard to understand from a lay man’s perspective, but I shall try to explain; you cannot compare the “productivity” of the US with a Sweden to derive a conclusion about their competitiveness; anymore than you can compare a F1 racing car with a bicycle to derive a meaningful conclusion; let alone draw a definitive result to conclude that what is required is more spending in education as a prescriptive cure.
The economics of education and yeild (return on investment) is market driven; for example in Japan and US, it makes perfect sense for an engineer to study nuclear and perhaps even material science – why? They have mature industries in areas that gives students “opportunity cost” in a wide field of areas: in the form of Westinghouse; Boeing, General Dynamics, Ford Motors etc. Japan has the Zaibatsu’s and in the case of Korea they have the Cheobo’s – it is these juggernauts that set the DIRECTIONAL focus of education! After that is trashed out then ONLY spending and allocation is tabled, NEVER the other way around Question: does SG have even one hundred per parts of a millionth of any of these manufacturing base attributions? Lets not even discuss constrains such as land, population, market and intellectual capital.
My point is spending money is NOT the solution. You cannot expect to put the horse before the cart to get meaningful results. The market must first feature, then the demand and supply calculation kicks in – this is basic economics.
The question the RF party should have considered IMHO is what is the DIRECTIONAL focus that Singapore should ideally craft – had this been done, then the chart would have made sense, as it is what is presented is not only inaccurate, but an onward misrepresentation of the current skills to yeild calculus and what is even more bizarre is how it is treated as an assumption to base a cogent argument about the merits and demerits of education and spending.
Gentlemen, this is not the way to craft a convincing case. Not to intelligent people at least. I am sorry if this appears undiplomatic, but I can see no other way to put my point across – I do beg many for my indulgence on this matter.
SD
I recently read something about the percentage of graduates in Switzerland being deliberately capped at 15%. I was searching to verify this and rationale behind this. I found this instead – the average percentage of foreign students in Swiss universities is about 25% (link below).
http://blog.swisster.com/education_corner/files/2009/09/2009-09-22_160429.jpg
T
“that is no good as Singapore does not have the critical mass in terms of population to absorb mediocrity” : SD.
Well, that may be true but then again where does the fault lies if not for the poor hindsight of governments gone by and the one that still attempts to stay uselessly useful.
Aren’t we in the same ‘Mahathir-type-of boat’? We have spent so much time, energy and resources in building a model nation that would not only be the envy of the world but to also be at the forefront of development – or so we were made to believe.
What have we actually done is not nation-building but wealth-gambling, all in the hope of striking sudden riches. Isn’t this why we are told we are not yet a nation? How can we be a nation when the structure that is fundamental to what a nation is, is not properly addressed?
What is this fundamental structure if not the people? This is especially more so with a country like Singapore where the only asset we have and can depend on is its people.
So, over the years, the PAP regime, time and time again has shown us that they knew this fundamental truth, and knew what needed to be done, but yet did not do enough to make sure its people measured up to expectations. Why is this so? Perhaps we should give some thought to the education-process?
Why have we failed to produce the talents that we know we need? Have the people been deprived of the means to excel, for example, school fees, high tuition fees, high cost of living, working parents with un-minded children etc?. Is the studying environment conducive for students to excel in their grades? What else besides good grades is the student measured against?
The litany if questions could go on and on and they all tell of one very fundamental flaw in our system; in our pursuit of being at the forefront of global development. The government knew from long ago that it has to depend on its own people to do this but yet it failed to provide them with the unhindered opportunity to excel. This is why we have to turn outward now. Years after the failure of the system to produce the talents we require, we are now discovering that we have to turn outward – not to stay ahead, but only to stay competitive.
What else have we learnt from all this? Indeed, as the article suggests, we should not be treating the symptoms but the disease as a whole. What then is the disease, we ask? The disease can be very easily diagnosed: it is PAP’s fear of losing its mandate to govern Singapore. All else is nothing but attempts to strengthen its hold on power – all in the guise of working for the nation – a nation that will never be, if the PAP continues to be given the opportunity to deceive.
Lets take Car prices for discussion purpose:
1. UK residents can own any of these cars for around 35k pounds :
a. BMW 5 series Touring 525d SE Business edition
b. Audi A5 3.2 FSI Sport
c. Audi A6 Avant 2.8 FSI Quattro SE
d. many more elegant choices to blow you away.
2. In singapore, for a roughly equivalent price paid, around S$77,000.00
you get : Toyota Corrolla Altis.
reference sources:
http://www.carpages.co.uk/car-prices/car-prices-35000-to-49999-1.asp
http://www.sgcarmart.com/new_cars/newcars_listing.php?MOD=Toyota+corolla
Is this value for money?
RP has brought up a good topic.
The statistics suggests to me that statistics can be viewed and presented in numerous ways and based on numerous angles. It depends also on the person who approves the release of the statistics.
I hope people learn, fast.
Let me repeat a comment that I’ve posted on the Facebook page while this main site was down:
During the seminar, Tony or Hazel brought up RP’s idea of employing a modular style of courses to secondary schools. The rationale given for this system is that it allows the student to tailor his education to his own capability and speed. It removes the need to the streaming of students which is currently in place. So a smarter student may take, for example, four modules a term, while a slower student may choose only three. Such a modular system is used in most universities including the local ones.
However, I’m not sure if I quite see the real benefit of the idea. Modular style of education has its own problems, as many local university students can tell you. On top of that, it doesn’t solve the primary problem of the current streaming method, which is the stigmatisation of students in lower streams (i.e. EM3 and Normal streams). The stigma now becomes the number of modules the student take a semester. Worse, parents may push their children to take more than what they can take; whereas in the current streaming system the pace is taken out of the hands of the parents.
This is my opinion on this particular idea. Please correct me if I’ve gotten it wrong.
i agree with SingaporeDaddy, in that one should look at the bigger picture and come up with a directional focus.
T asked about why the swiss govt caps university intake in the first place.
IMO, education policy is a tool, not the end.
Sure, governments control the supply of education (in that they can build universities anytime)
but they don’t because of the demand side constraints- which is jobs.
There is a limit of university jobs out there, and it should make sense that uni jobs:non-uni job ratio is small.
Everyone wants to be manager, but there can only be one manger among 10 workers.
Given the limit of grad jobs available, there is no point mass producing grads,
only to have high grad unemployment (like Taiwan) or having grads do unskilled jobs (like Filipino maids).
So given that the constraint is on the demand side, the logical strategy is to focus on growing the pie.(i.e. job market)
The primary goal here is to create higher value added and higher paying jobs for Singaporeans.
Currently, role of education policy is to support this objective and anticipate the jobs (becoz training takes time).
The problem with that strategy is that it sets our people up as ‘workers’
and leaves us dependent on MNCs and GLCs for job creation.
And as globalization sweeps in the next wave of hot, low cost countries, MNCs are going to be on the move.
IMO, we should break out of this dependency by getting our people to ‘co-produce’ jobs.
This means a more creative approach towards education (i leave pedagogy to the education experts)
such that our people are not only high tech workers but savvy entrepeurneurs that create jobs.
So i agree with SingaporeDaddy,
increasing quantity (by raising ratio) is not the solution. the problem is on the jobs side.
Changing the direction of education can be part of the solution-
by moving people from being “passive” job workers to “active” job creaters.
Cheers,
RW
I am so looking forward to PAP’s punch on 1 FEB 2010. The Economic Strategy Committee will release its first report.
Good Morning Gemami 1.08,
How are you keeping?
“Aren’t we in the same ‘Mahathir-type-of boat’? We have spent so much time, energy and resources in building a model nation that would not only be the envy of the world but to also be at the forefront of development – or so we were made to believe.”
We are definitely not in a Mahathir boat, that’s the Titanic or Kursk.
Nonetheless, it is conceivable we may be in leaky boat and soon be a submarine, if we cont to remain bovine and as I mention earlier fail to set a clear DIRECTIONAL focus on where education should go as a matter of strategic priority (so far IMHO, too much emphasis is on the INSTRUCTIONAL).
IMHO, our most serious problem is the fuzzy or lack of DIRECTIONAL focus not the INSTRUCTIONAL, as comparatively, we have excellent schools, fab teachers and a very competent minister overseeing that portfolio (I am not a PAP fan, but when a man excels in his job, in the brotherhood, we give him due recognition, we call a sportsmanship)
Coming back to the issue. A failure to set a wise DIRECTIONAL focus did us in, we got knocked out cold in this economic hit!: as you rightly spotted Gemami for years , we may have emulated the wrong model. We like to compare ourselves to the Swiss, as a result we placed most of our chips on banking, hubbing (shipping) and byzantine super high end research programs like bio-tech. We considered these the gold standard of progress and organizational success.
We neglected nut and bolt manufacturing on the trite excuse, we are landless, but we failed to foresee the real meat in manufacturing is not in production (that can be outsourced to China), but in the intrinsic value of intellectual property, consultancy and management, that is the value added component – now the banking sector is like Verdun and as for bio-tech great experiment, it’s starting to resemble the movie, a bridge too far – so all these are the result of setting the wrong DIRECTIONAL focus. Had we emulated a country like Sweden 20 years ago: where they have the highest patents and Intellectual property per capita (despite their lack of critical mass in human resources) instead of country where their greatest invention was the cuckoo clock and wheeling and dealing with corrupt people who like to park their dodgy money in absolute secrecy, the Singapore story would have had a stellar ending had we plumbed the other way. And education / money and this seminar would be a sterile debate.
Singaporedaddy
(The Internet Officer of the Brotherhood – sponsored by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild)
is 5% would be a stretch as symptom for any bad things to come?
@Singaporedaddy on Jan 26, 2010 at 10.06 am
“…we have excellent schools, fab teachers and a very competent minister overseeing that portfolio…”
I agree with the train of thought about lack of direction (someone said S’pore is like a jack of all hubs), however not on the competency of the minister. Are we to say we can have excellent weaponry, the best trained soldiers, the most competent general, etc… but when it comes to battles, we got whipped? We seem to have a different meaning for meritocracy & pay scale than rest of world, but this is ridiculous. In fact, given we used some of the best soldiers in the world to guard our prisons and yet a limping inmate can walk out shows what idiots we have. Nothing personal here.
Where are our top-notch scholars after all these years? Sitting on their asses in some govt bodies? Why can these white horses form a Google for Singapore, instead of us always lamenting the lack of local talents (hence the lame excuse for FTs)? Where are our growth industries given our so-called excellent education system and “competent” minister? The IRs and F1 racing? These are growth industries, meh? Did they factor in Korea’s Disneyland coming online? ST 20 Jan mentioned Sanyo-Panasonic is pumping US$19 billion into renewable forms of energy between 2009 and 2011. What is the budget for our esteemed A-Star in this area? Or maybe our billions are being invested by GIC/TH so that we can buyout Sanyo-Panasonic when they have developed the technologies – provided our investments don’t get evaporated.
I congratulate RP for their ideas.
I don’t think it is necessary to be coherent.
PAP recent statements on productivity are not coherent as well.
contrary to some, I didn’t think the ideas presented are against foreigners. It is just pro-singaporeans which should have been the case. How else you inspire foreigners to become s’poreans?
keep giving them tax incentives and freebies?
It is not acceptable that there is a shortage of labour in lucrative sectors but the proportion of people in those sectors are largely non singaporeans.
It goes to show policy failures at multiple levels.
We really need big Change and change fast.
How much more will CPF min sum become?
How many have influxed? Who can check on the figures?
I worry a lot about the current model.
Crouching tigers, hidden dragons, pls spare a thought for the society.
Pls step forward now.
The discussion here is so stimulating I could not resist jumping in. Thank you RW and Singaporedaddy for your criticisms. Singaporedaddy should not sound apologetic about being critical for this is the best thing you can do for us. It is through all of you pointing out our shortcomings that we can become better. Thank you for taking the time to attend our seminar and share your thoughts afterwards, even though I would have preferred that you voice these out during the seminar so that we can talk face to face. Did we leave too little time for interaction? We will need to change that. But this is fine too, no fish, prawn also can. Having said that, allow me to go on to disagree with you on directional focus. I feel that the last 10 to 20 years have shown us that developments are highly unpredictable and govt bodies are not the best bodies to be trying to anticipating the next market opportunity. Is it realistic to expect politicians to be able to “forecast” what the world is going to be like 10 to 20 years from now? For that is what education must do, to prepare our people for the world 10 to 50 years (over their whole working life) later. Of course we should always plan ahead and anticipate, but to go to the extend of directing the course of our people in accordance to what our politicians forsee is in my view carrying trust and faith too far, and unhealthy too. Each person should always be responsible for their own path and decisions. The role of education is not to push people into identified industries, but to equip them with the skills and knowledge for further learning later in their life, to help them discover their relative strengths and nurture their desire to add or create value, and the confidence to deal with whatever changes that come. These will offer longer lasting values, for the generations whose life expectancies are getting longer but business cycles shorter.
Despite my differing point of view, please continue to send your views. The level of discussion during and after the seminar is great. It has made me quite proud of our little seminar! I had been feeling a bit drained out, with a job and 2 sons and party activities, but hearing from so many of you has renewed my energy. Please come for our future seminars!
I forgot to address the part about xenophobia and protectionism. I totally agree it is suicidal to close ourselves to external competition, but in my view, a government must always take care of its citizens first. Treating citizens and non-citizens equally / almost equally is not equitable because the non-citizens have their govt to take care of them (or should). If our govt does not place our citizens first, who is going to do that? If I have little guests coming to my house I will extend full hospitality towards them but I will never treat them like I treat my own children. If I treat them equally, my children will start to think they are not special to me. This may not be the perfect analogy but it illustrates to some extend the bond that should exist between the people and their leaders.
Jackson Tan, thanks for sharing your views about the problems with the module system. Appreciate it! : )
BTW, what is the brotherhood and Interspacing Mercantile Guild?
the ideas presented by LHL today is nothing new.
It has been carried out at least by those small entrepreneurs.
I wonder why can’t LHL propose something effective and original.
Hi Hazel 4.27
“Is it realistic to expect politicians to be able to “forecast” what the world is going to be like 10 to 20 years from now?” You are right Hazel, a politician cannot do that; that’s why as a tax payer when a minister draws a seven figure salary annually – I expect him to approach problems like a statesman and NOT a politician; as only a statesman can have the métier to appreciate the long term ramifications of education and the role it plays in the economy and well being of a state.
I don’t think. I am unreasonable to expect the custodians of power to set the DIRECTIONAL focus of education – no one expects them to be the reincarnation of Nostradamus; but setting a DIRECTIONAL focus for the long term is something that is IMHO a very reasonable KPI – what do you think Warren Buffett, the Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has been doing all this time to get a good return on investment for his shareholders?
So Hazel, this is a very reasonable, doable and baseline proposition. I beg your indulgence, but I do have to disagree with you under the strongest possible terms that this is not a viable proposition.
Thank You
SD
Singaporedaddy, couple of questions to you:
Education
———
What has education got to do with “DIRECTIONAL FOCUS”? It is this “DIRECTIONAL FOCUS” that has hurt Spore & sporeans badly today. If our people have a diversity of skills, not sheep herded into industrial pens, we would have done a lot better economically and socially. For eg If our cleaners are U grads, they would know all about hygiene, what germs need what sort of treatment, how to prevent deseases, how to sanitise properly, how to maintain food hygiene, etc etc. If our fashion designers are U grads in textile technology, they will know what materials are comfortable & smart for the hot weather etc. Unless Spore has such high standard of workers, any mainland Chinese rural people can replace us at lower costs. Socially, people are happy in what they do as well. How can you expect people to excel or continue researching and innovating if what they do are but mundane tasks to earn a living. Without PASSION in what you do, there is very little chance of making a difference.
Return on investment
——————–
By measuring education this way, you are taking people as commodity. You are gambling. This is why nothing comes of it in the long term. You may make it big but you will also fall deep. When the wind changes direction, you are finished whereas if Spore has a diversity of skilled and qualified people, we will always survive. How I wish our taxi drivers are highly educated people. They can provide good insight on our society and how to help make it it better, and also be contented drivers.
Finally, if Spore has a world reputation of having the best qualified workers including cleaners and taxi drivers, we may even have to turn away tourists flocking here to experience life in our society. We need to change our mindset on education before even talking about spending.
BS. NUS was allocated 900 millions out from the 10 billions budget.
i.e. coming close to 10% of the budget.
Yet they loses 677 millions.
If we are to continue investing in University like this without accountability, we will have problems soon.
The Professors will be the happiest. But look at the graduate. Are they having good time find jobs?
The current influx of immigrants reflect badly on the entire country planning.
Years back, PAP claims that all their contestant are great cos all are graduate. Now when Scholars join the opposition, our beloved co*k king tell the whole world, do not look at grades.
Maybe we should request Mah BT to publish his grades so that we can know better what is happening. He must have failed his Maths badly.
On the other hand, he statistics must have scored highest. Reason, write BS to smoke out. One of the worst number manipulator.
Where has my post gone?
**Moderating Editor: Apologies, as your comments were flagged as spam for some reason.**
Based on historical facts,
at least 1 financial crisis hits the world each decade.
Based on last few crisis, each new one is bigger crisis than before.
Golden Age means what?
Next 10 years can know 5% will be a stretch?
Is this an aspiration or guarantee?
i think there are just too many question marks.
Hi SD,
Great to hear from you once again.
I agree to a certain extent that there ought to have been some better-crafted directional focus, especially with our educational system, even more so when the highly worshipped practice of meritocracy depends solely on the piece of paper one is able to acquire at the end of years of education – and everything else made relative to this.
This is the biggest flaw, if you ask me; that too much emphasis is placed on the intellectual dimensions. A student who excels in rote-learning, for example, and scores exceptionally well, is automatically certified an intellectual worth chasing after.
What else he is made of outside the desktop learning parameters is not a matter of consideration, and, because of this the imbalance between his software and hardware composition becomes a hindrance in other aspects. It becomes an ‘all-work-and-no-play’ situation, no fun to be with or to work for.
That is the programming of our educational system and what does one hope to see come out of such programming except a cohort of individuals that are no different one from the other. Is it any wonder then why we are looking outward for that little bit of difference from other nationals – who possess the same paper qualifications but come with a better package of street-wise qualification as well.
Hazel, I agree (also to a certain extent) that we should not fault the short-sightedness of policy makers when attempting to look into the crystal ball to see what might be in 10, 20 or even 30 years down the road. However, I agree only if these people are not paid the way they are paid. As SD correctly pointed out that the expectations we demand is tied to the salary scale of these policy makers. May I also add that this has always been their declaration: that they are able to see 20 to 30 years down the line, and giving the impression that they are mini-gods. Why then shouldn’t we hold them to this boast of theirs?
Most importantly, why should we bear the brunt of a boast gone wrong?
I personally feel that although the intention of building up an educated people is not a bad thing, it is the manner in which it was (and still is) pushed across that is the root-cause of all these other problems we are facing today.
One fine example is the Mandarin policy, or rather, the way Mandarin was taught. By MM Lee’s own admission, he was personally at fault because of his stubbornness. He admitted he was stubborn and too rigid to listen to alternative views, believing his views were the only ones that would be good for Singapore and its people. Look at where we are now – the endless ridicule of our broken Mandarin and what not.
Let me end my comment with another fine example that was published by the ST this week where the writer lamented that it took a partially-blind boy to give up his seat to a blind man in one of our many handicap-friendly buses. Does it surprise anyone?
Truth be told; I saw this coming 15 years ago; and it does not take me a lot of learning to see this coming. Should I not then expect the multi-million dollar team to see this coming too?
i hope my message reaches the eye of RP people.
I would like to suggest that a study be made on the mentality of Chinese people in China :
1. Do they question where their Tax money go to?
2. Do they have people’s representatives in their whatever house they call it to voice up for them?
3. Do they base on TRUST and accept or do they base on Black and White ?
4. Do they have Check and Balance in their system on the system?
Likewise, for singapore chinese, I like to ask :
1. While Trust is not a bad thing, do they base on black and white as well?
2. Do they know how much is the construction cost and the ‘generous subsidy’?
3. Do they know what is total loss?
Then, compare with 1st world Americans and Europeans.
I think this study would be intellectually stimulating.
Maybe J Gomez can contribute in this white paper.
Cheers.
“….I feel that the last 10 to 20 years have shown us that developments are highly unpredictable and govt bodies are not the best bodies to be trying to anticipating the next market opportunity. Is it realistic to expect politicians to be able to “forecast” what the world is going to be like 10 to 20 years from now?…”
I think we are too kind here. 40-50 years ago, when Singapore was only “a small fishing village”, our politicians always claim it was their foresight, blah, blah… that brought us to where we are today (never mind the sweat & blood of our forefathers/mothers). In the same breath, disastrous policies like Stop-at-2 (also started 40+ years ago) have brought many of our current problems, especially for a small population country (aka “city”), and yet we are expected to bow our heads to say things like “nobody can predict the future”. Seriously, does anyone want to follow a general into war where conditions are extremely unpredictable — if the war is won, he says it is due to his skills, but if lost, he said it is due to factors outside his control? This is just a very basic question of leadership & accountability — and I think our current batch of MPs ain’t have it. Not at the 6-figure salary they are drawing, as Gemini has rightly pointed out.
And what lots of BS about the current productivity drive. You mean they can’t have foreseen that importing loads of cheap labour over the past decade or so would NOT impact our productivity? That we need an excellent education system and busloads of Ph.D to tell us this??? Or a no-brainer labor chief to start shouting another slogan like more automation to improve productivity? C’mon, if we had invested billions into job redesigning 10+ years ago, instead of giving it to GIC/TH to invest (which may be on the net positive side), LSS would probably be out of a job now. The only significant job redesigning we have achieved is that a Little Red Dot’s PM pay can exceed that of a superpower like USA. Yes, we are ever so kind….
Oh, oh….and our birth rate continues to dip even with the massive influx of foreigners. Our highly educated and competent Ministers still clueless on what’s happening…..? Strange. Maybe need to boost their pay to 7-digit as incentive, like what’s happening in the US banks??
Hi, all readers who make the statement that born and bred Singaporeans are of xenophobia should reconsider their baseless accusations and groundless allegations!
I opine that in the first place, we should check up the dictionary in regards to the meaning of xenophobia (n)—an unreasonable fear and dislike of strange or foreign people, customs, etc; xenophobic (adj), mind you, by having up to 36% of residents (foreign born inclusive of fts and prs) residing in a “city-state” of 710 sq.km. If anybody dares to conclude that born and bred Singaporeans are of xenophobia toward foreigners, I opine that “he/she should be sent to the firing squad and gun-down in execution style”! Because, he/she do not deserve to be lived in this wonderful world!
Vice versa, are those accusers opine that Singapore residential populations should constitute of 64% of residents who are foreign born and only 36% of local born and bred citizens then, this country, mind you I repeat again, this is a country (city-state) and not a city, is not considered as xenophobic!!!!!
Any debater who knows about debate and has good debating skills should first define the meaning of the statements or words to be argued for prior to making any allegations/accusations or simply judgments on his/her opponents! So, my dear readers of TOC, I strongly opine that born and bred Singaporeans are not xenophobic!!! Cease all unfound allegations and halt all untrue accusations!
Thank you!
Good Morning all – Glad to hear you are keeping well Gemami 8.22
Yes, I think you may have highlighted a few jugular points.
Do allow me to add to what you have said. IMHO the main problem is the current scholar system DISABLES, it does not ENABLE, that is to say it fails to elicit creativity and innovation. As it is like a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks up all the intellectual capital and bags them in fossilized government oligarchies; so the private sector is suffering from a form of intellectual anorexia; that is why providing these conditions persist, there can be no google, Microsoft , Air Asia or even Pixar in Singapore – as intellectual capital and entreprenuerialship are inextricably linked – they feed on each other and they will always play a preponderant role in the competitive advantage equation.
Paradoxically, the only people IMHO who can reverse this travesty of human waste happens to be the same people who Philip Yeo once named and shamed with the complicity of our beloved rag and the blessing of some of our ministers (not all, as some did cite him for his stupidity) – ironically, when these “losers” were pushed out their comfort zones; those guys acquired core competencies that our kwai kwai scholars can never acquire even if they had 10 lifetimes – risk evaluation, managing opportunities & threats, opportunity cost, risk mitigation etc and they sharpened their skills against the best in a dog eat dog global budokan – so they are the real vanguards of Singapore IMHO; the kwai kwai variety are just free loaders – if you rely on them, they will take us straight down to hell.
The ronins or what we call the rubberband brigade may be a testy lot, frankly they even test my patience at times, but if you want to get things done; they have always delivered (from our experience with them at least): unfortunately the only one who can handle them in our fraternity is Darkness (and you all have to decide whether he is another psychopath?);as they are all mavericks so they remind a lot of those ace fighter pilots of lore –egoistic, boastful and darn right natural rebels without a cause. Personally, I don’t relish their company.
But the beauty is you don’t need many of them to return home; we just need to convince 5 or 6; as they hunt in packs, so when they return, so will their gang (kaki’s) – then and only then can you talk about a Singapore Google. Without these mavericks and the present human material that our scholar system has produced, it’s like commissioning Michelangelo to produce something great when you only have clay, you will just end up with a very nice Ikea flower pot – don’t expect a David, that is only possible if you have the right (human) material, like Palermo marble.
My point is we dont need to wait for another Bill Gates or Steve Jobs to grow up in 20 or 30 years; WE ALREADY HAVE THEM HERE TODAY! – all they ask in return is a public apology from Mr Yeo, a small show of contrition – this IMHO is a very small thing to ask.
I am sorry for my wind bag reply. Do have a productive day.
SD (The Internet Officer of the Brotherhood – sponsored by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild)
In the face of increasing xenophobic and racist comments in the Singaporean blogosphere and on online forums, it is time that Singaporeans and Singapore residents stand united and show this minority of posters that racism and xenophobia have no place in a first world, meritocratic, civilized society. This is a call to all Singaporean bloggers: Make clear that you do not accept this and help spread the word. Post a message on your blog calling for fraternity rather than pandering to populist, divisive rhetoric. It is one thing to disagree with a government, it is another to create social disharmony by insulting people because of their race or nationality.
I agree with smallyfly that Singaporeans are used to foreigners.
Since its founding days, foreigners have been part of our lives.
Initially, the british, china coolies and indian laborers helped constructed this place.
But i sense there is someone trying to confuse people that just because we need foreigners, it justifies opening the door so wide and allowing so many Even During Recession.
These are 2 different things.
To elaborate for the naive:
Eating protein is good for you. So we take protein.
Does this mean taking overdose of protein?
or how about this?
Botox can make you look younger.
If you take overdose of botox, is it ok given that all the while you have been taking botox to look young?
Hum tastes nice to some.
Does this mean taking overdose of hum will taste nicer?
High pay can attract talents.
But does this mean over paying super high pay will change a talent into a super talent?
Its a waste of precious money.
The above shows 1 thing: We need to learn to Expect Quantification of words people say/claim.
How many singapore jobs are being taken away by talents who cannot be quantified their level of talent or is it based on resume anyone can write? or salary?
On the subject of xenophobia, I do not think the expressions by those that border on the personal are any more insulting to the treatment that our older citizens are being treated in recent times. What most of these voices are calling for is recognition for our older citizens and their contribution to nation-building.
How would you feel if you have been patted on the back your whole life and being made to believe that the nation you have been helping to build is taking concrete shape, when all of a sudden, after you have outlived your usefulness, to be told that the nation you have been building is not the nation that was first envisioned by the planners.
Worst still is the constant blame game that these poor and naïve folks are receiving. Has anyone spared a thought to these old folks who are now told to make themselves useful by up-Spurs and up-Skills and up-whatever.
Can there be anything worst than this? Unfortunately, there is. The children of these older citizens, you and I, are now been told that we are not as hardworking as our former generations, that we demand too much, that we are spoilt, that we are unproductive, that we need to bring in foreigners so that we can be pushed to perform for the country.
Look at all this if you will and hopefully you can spare a thought to why such feelings of frustrations, anger and lost hope are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
For foreigners, they just have to learn to see the picture for what it is and not take offence if such anger and frustrations are thrown their way. They have to accept that this is going to be part and parcel of living in a foreign land that is Singapore.
If there is anything they can do, then they ought to ask this government who has been so good to them, to show a little bit of goodness to these deserving older citizens. These have contributed a whole lifetime of sweat and toil. The new Singaporean has contributed nothing yet.
Mun Kim Moong on Jan 27, 2010 at 8.51 am
Dr Wong Wee Nam gives his take on the singaporean mentality and the level of moral development:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrhJFf6AEMM&
So, for any political party to change singapore, they need to change the people’s mentality.
Dr Wong gave his take also on the recently passed public order act. His view is, i quote, “which person who believes in democracy and the basic right of an individual to express himself would support this act?”
for me, i cannot understand why singaporeans accept the lack of clear answers to pertinent questions.
This only leads me to suspect that there is something seriously wrong with the People’s mentality which is one of the most shameful thing in the world i know.
There is definitely a reason for the mentality.
I heard that native singaporeans are only about 64% or so left. The rest being newbies. With reduced birthrate maintaining low if not lower rates, i am convinced even if native singaporean population dwindle to 10%, 90% augmented by newbies, singaporeans would not care.
The mentality is a disease.
I think it is too simplistic a view that all faults lie with the Government.
Our present predicament is the result of the all-embracing culture of ignorance and mediocrity that has infected all segments of our society. And what had produced such a culture is the very narrow education that Singaporeans receive. Intellectual prestige is accorded to people who excel in exams. Meritocracy is defined in terms of paper qualifications. Fame, position and reward await those with straight As. Anxious and witless parents are kept sleepless worrying about their child’s next test or exam paper. Many people have jumped to the ludicrous conclusion that “education = passing exams”.
Actually, achieving excellent exam results is not that difficult – you just have to be willing to put in the hours and the hard work. But that is far from being educated. Being truly educated entails much much more, namely, achieving a whole spectrum of life-skills, vocational competence, social intelligence, civil behavior, common sense, emotional stability, maturity, adaptability, cultural sensitivity, moral judgment, etc, etc.
The fault does not only lie with the schools and universities because education is supposed to take place in the home and in society. Alas, parents are neglectful of their educational role, thinking that the best that they can do is to pay for more tuition classes. Our social and political environment is also not conducive to producing a culture of candor which is essential for such broad-based education.
So, a narrow-minded society begets a narrow-minded environment which begets a narrow-minded people. In the end, narrow-minded people are bound to become unhappy and frustrated failures.
“On the subject of xenophobia, I do not think the expressions by those that border on the personal are any more insulting to the treatment that our older citizens are being treated in recent times.” What that has to do with xenophobia? It is ok if one is a racist because old people are badly treated? Me I am a racist because the COE price is going up. Not fair, blame foreigners.
Hi Smallvoice585,
Yours is a circular argument. Based on your reasoning, do you not see that the condition by which parents are compelled to follow the direction the state has set for them is so evident?
I agree that parents ought to share part of the blame in the educational process but I cannot help running aground to the conclusion that the hands of these parents are tied, inasmuch as, if they do not follow the tide, they and their children will have a hard struggle to overcome all through their lives. And why is this so if not for the evaluation process that sets the benchmark for meritocracy. The paper-chase is the only guarantee that merits recognition.
Can we then blame the parents for behaving thus? Take a look, for example, at our athletes who excel in the disciplines they specialize in. How many of them can pursue a sports career without having to look over their shoulders to make sure they have good academic results to fall back on? How can our sportsmen and sportswomen excel in sports when they have to juggle and be equally good at both ends?
‘Holistic’ is the common byword in our schools – extolling the virtue of striking a balance between work and play. Tell me, would a teacher notify a child’s parents if he/she is not good at say, soccer or badminton, or, would he be more pronto with feedback if the child is not good in Math or English?
This is a good example and a reflection of our society in terms of the education that our young are receiving.
It clearly shows that the fault comes from the very top. The state sets the direction, and in Singapore’s limited and challenging environment, the schools and media propagate the importance of embracing such a direction resulting in parents and students clamouring to be amongst the best – as measured by the meritocracy barometer.
This is discernment in its most simplistic form, yet, the conclusion that the government is solely at fault is not a simplistic one.
Hi Useyourblain,
You are distorting my comments. I am not saying that we should go ahead to run down our foreign friends but to present a possible case of why and how such xenophobic views could have come from.
One has to agree that there is a problem here, whether the views are xenophobic or not. By continuing to ignore the problem and continuing to shaft the ‘foreign-is-better’ mantra down our heads and throats, the government is doing nothing more than flaming the perception even further.
This is not a time for fellow Singaporeans to put down these sort of views. Rather, it is a time for us to close ranks and look after our own and to ask that the government look after their welfare before that of the foreigner.
Many examples have already been cited, that of the government spending freely when it comes to integrating the foreigner with locals but are stingy-than-ever toward its own people.
Money issue aside, the treatment, the ridicules, the reprimands coming out from the government, almost on a daily basis; the scare-mongering never cease to amaze me. Has anyone ever ask why it is doing this if not to get Singaporeans to accord the foreigner the red-carpet treatment it thinks they deserve?
One does not have to use the brain to see that once the welfare of the locals is looked after, such views will automatically cease. We will then live happily ever after – one with the other – whether of the same colour, weight or height.
RP and all opposition can win all debates by just focussing on the un-clearly-answered questions:
1. Construction cost of HDB. Why is citizen not bothered to pursue this question?
2. Who knows how much is the total absolute loss? Why people not bothered to pursue the question?
3. recently passed public order act.
4. the inability of existing opposition to stop any bills from being passed due to opposition being Denied the votes by the people.
Is Self Interest more important than Society Interest?
If so, what disaster could this lead to in future ?
Good Morning all,
Xenophobia is a function of fear. This is understandable at every level, from employment, education and even to something as simple as being able to find a seat in the MRT. This is what invariably happens when large numbers of foreigners come into a country; they will change the demographic landscape and even have the power to cause shifts in prices like the cost of HDB’s along with altering the cultural texture and possibly even threaten the DNA of the status quo ante. So I don’t blame citizens for feeling disenfranchised. I understand completely.
This is a daily problem we face in the gaming networks as well (only it is much worse there as everyone is armed with a plasma gun); where 52 nations combine together in a small virtual place – government IMHO has so far adopted a laissez faire attitude when it comes to handling the relationship between citizens and residents; the result is catastrophic – if Xenophobia is to be driven out properly and the benefits of integration are to be seen by all, then govt needs to buy into the idea of La Convivencia – this is what we regularly do to keep the harmony in the gaming network; we work to keep the ties and interest common between the residents and mainstayers by ensuring each community knows their roles and goals in the greater scheme of things, drive out fear, misunderstanding and suspicion and xenophobia dies. But this is an ongoing process, it requires involvement.
But what was the govt done? They throw different people from all over the world in one tiny island and they expect things to work? That is like expecting a tornado to whip through a junkyard and magically assemble a 747 – if La Convivencia has to be practiced in a gaming network (as we know, no other way to keep the peace and we have tried everything), what more of a country that aspires harmonize relationships between citizens and residents?
You consider.
SD
Singaporedaddy,
For all our sakes, I do hope that they can live up to your high expectations.
You are referring to scholars who broke bond, I suppose. That is of course a good resource pool, but I am sure we have a lot of very capable people who are not scholars. Were you a scholar? You sound like someone who can make a lot of contribution to Singapore. What you wrote is always well thought through, well argued, and VERY thought provoking. You are Singaporedaddy, aren’t you? Do something for your child?
Gemami and theforgottongeneration,
I was not trying to defend the incumbents, they can do that very well without my clumsy assistance. I was commenting in general about the merits of harbouring such expectations. I understand your points of view perfectly, but I am unable to join in this particular thread of discussion due to certain reasons. No prizes for guessing what reasons.
Singaporedaddy and Gemami
I totally agree that whether justified or not, we need to recognise the fears and insecurities underlying xenophobic behaviour and address them. Can you divulge more details of your La Convivencia in your gaming world? Or is it something non-gamers would not understand?
Dear gemami on Jan 28, 2010 at 7.47 am,
My contention is very clear – the basic fault of our education system is that it is too narrow. It focuses mainly on the teaching of content and measures its success by over-testing. Given such a premise, the students’ response is to resort to rote-learning and 10-year series question-spotting. But if you do that, you would have wasted 10 to 12 years of your life memorizing facts, a large part of which you’ll forget later.
The result of such a system is a breeding of whole generations of people who lack the essential skills of intellect, work ethic, social behavior, cultural depth and morality which are needed for life, work and participation in society.
Yes, the Ministry of Education is at fault, but society itself is not blameless too for buying into the fallacy of exam smartness. There is nothing wrong with meritocracy; in fact, we should push for excellence and competency but it should not be measured by exam results.
Exam results are like your temperature readings of fever when you are sick. Over-testing is like measuring your temperature 20X a day – yet, no matter how often you test it, it will not go away. It will only go away if you take Panadol or if you see a doctor. So, having frequent school tests and exams is senseless. If you focus on exam results alone, you are like being paranoid about your fever but neglecting your other symptoms of illness like cough, breathlessness, runny nose, vomiting of blood, etc, which are even more important indicators of the seriousness of your sickness. So, education should necessarily be holistic – there is no escape from this.
Look around you. Why do Singaporeans have poor social etiquette? Why do they lack initiative? Why are they afraid of competition from foreign talents? Why do they feel that life is stressful? Why are daughters-in-law unable to get along with mothers-in-law? Why are many Singaporeans still superstitious? Why are their language skills so poor? Why are they anxious, insecure, demanding and uncaring towards the elderly and the pregnant? Why are they only primarily concerned about money and survival? Why is there is paucity of political talent?… etc, etc.
It’s because despite years of schooling, most Singaporeans are as good as being uneducated!