Photo credit: Mysingapore Blog
by Leong Sze Hian
I refer to the articles “1 in 5 from poorer homes” (ST, Nov 25) and “Parliament turns down NMPs’ calls to legislate pre-school education” (Channel News Asia, Nov 25).
According to the articles, Minister of State for Education Masagos Zulkifli told Parliament that there are pupils from the bottom one-third of families who make it to the top one-third of PSLE performers. Children from these families on lower incomes and whose parents are less well educated form 20 per cent of such top scorers.
Does this mean that a child from a richer family has four times the chance compared to a poorer family, of being in the top one-third of PSLE scorers (80 divided by 20 per cent)?
Mr Masagos also cited figures to show that “one in eight undergraduates in public universities lives in a one-, two- or three-room flat. These smaller units make up 30 per cent of all Housing Board flats.”
He concluded that those from poorer households also continue to “climb up the education ladder”. This is incorrect, as the same statistics actually reveal that the chances of pupils from poorer households may have dropped from the 20 per cent at PSLE, to 12.5 per cent (one in eight) in university!
Another way of putting it may be – does it mean that a poorer family child may see his or her chances of being a university graduate, drop by another 37.5 per cent (12.5 divided by 20 per cent), from PSLE to university?
To what extent, has the rising costs of nursery, day-care, kindergarten, etc, impacted the academic performance probability of such children?
Moreover, I find it to be somewhat inappropriate to use income as the criteria to justify that poorer children are not overly disadvantaged at PSLE, and then use the type of HDB flat as the criteria for justificaion of the same argument in university.
This may be akin to what we call inconsistency in the use of data for analysis and to draw conclusions.
What is the income criteria used to define a lower-income family?
The HDB flat type may also not be the only or best indicator of family income and circumstances that may affect a child’s performance.
For example, some of those who live in larger flats, may have less disposable cash for their children’s education and related expenses, because of their larger commitments to mortgage payments, service and conservancy charges (S & CC), property tax, etc.
So, can we be given both the income and flat type statistics at both PSLE and university?
Also, more detailed statistics on the comparative performance of children from poorer versus richer families, at vrious household income percentiles and corresponding grades, may give a clearer picture of the impact of economic status on academic performance.
Such statistics could also be given historically, so that we can analyse whether the effect of status on performance has gone up or down over the years.
Almost all other countries in the world, like the Nordic countries, do not skew the financial benefits for children from birth to pre-school, to the advantage of higher-income families, like Singapore.
For example, child tax reliefs, tax rebates, matching contribution to child accounts, etc, do not benefit lower-income families that do not pay any income tax, or do not have the disposable cash to put into children accounts.
Aside from the disadvantages to children from poorer families up to pre-school and beyond, the selection criteria for scholarships, may also be skewed towards children from richer families, because of subjective criteria like extra-curricular and non-academic achievements and activities.
Children from poorer families may not have the funds or time to participate in non-academic activities.
Finally, statistics aside, there were 350 children who did not benefit from pre-school education before going to primary school, in 2009. How many of these children were arguably deprived of an equal start in life, because they came from poorer families?
After all, NMPs Viswa Sadasivan and Audrey Wong had merely proposed a motion for a comprehensive review of pre-school education in Singapore.
By denying even a review, so that there can be a comprehensive study of the issue, is in my view a lacking in compassion and a display of arrogance in brushing-of such an important problem that (without a review – how do we know how serious or widespread the problem is? ) Parliament should at least have voted on.
I concluded 2 things from ths article :
(a) the policy maker in this case doesn’t know much about statistics.
(b) the current government cohort has a very low standard of what ‘talent’ is. There can be many ways of defining what a talent is, but this reply is not one of them.
If policies are made based on what those Ministers understood, WE ARE SCREWED!!!!
Most times, the ministers just repeat verbatim whatever the report was given to them. I doubt they understood much. Not that they don’t have the ability to do it, but they just can’t be bothered.
let’s be honest about it.
the brutal truth is in a society such as ours,the poor are getting to be more and more screwed one way or another,even from a very young age!
can anyone deny this truth?
“Does this mean that a child from a richer family has four times the chance compared to a poorer family, of being in the top one-third of PSLE scorers (80 divided by 20 per cent)?”
This statement seems wrong. Suppose there are 30% low income houses, then there are 70% mid-high income. The 30% low took 20% of the top 1/3. The 70% mid-high took 80% of the top 1/3. Surely this is not 4 times. But it is indeed higher.
We feel very sad and indignant that in prosperous and wealthy Singapore, there are 12,000 school children who do not have pocket money to eat at school and take transport.
This indicates their parents could not make enough to feed and educate their children, such news impact the image of our country on the international scene.
Should our Govt follow other countries by
providing free milk for improvished kids
to take in school. Why even burden the citizens for such a thing as providing pocket money for poor kids. Isn’t that the responsibility of the Govt.This is not something to be proud of, and our kids are the future leaders and hope for the nation. Shouldn’t we nourish their growing brains first? Take action and talk less.
It is really strange that whenever a problem is highlighted, great pains are taken to rebut that such a problem exists.
Another recent example would be the “what are we defending ” saga, where again, statistics were brought up to conclude that “over 90% of our youth” etc etc etc.
So the problem gets swept under the carpet and everyone responsible felt good that they had done a great job so far.
Gone are the days where children of taxi-drivers, hawkers and laborers stood an equal chance academically. The mental development of the kids from better off families start at a very young age. Which is fine actually, except our educational system labels and streams our children at a far too early stage, where the advantages of having early nurturing is much magnified.
Education, in my times, were one of the levelers where we could move out of the poverty cycle. However, in these days, the very same thing has become a poverty trap where it keeps most of the poor at the bottom of the economic ladder, and inclined steeper than before.
And to put the final nail in, no minimum wage for these people and no safety nets, otherwise, they will have a clutch mentality.
the way out of the poverty trap is higher education, but the way to higher education requires a bucketload of $$$.
so what is this govt doing for citizens? any significantly positive impact/s since the last election? also, what is the point of getting better grades when foreigners who are willing to take lesser pay is hired over locals with better grades?
parents who give children the illusion that higher education & better grades will better their chances of employment (locally) or higher pay isn’t doing them a favour if reality speaks otherwise.
Children from lower income family are at a disadvantage from the very 1st year they start their primary education.
Some lucky ones with some help can ‘catch’ up when they are in upper primary – these are the ones that work hard and are motivated to learn. The majority just fall behind even when they are in secondary level.
Both parents struggling to make ends meet and has no time for them. They normally struggle with English and with poor command of it, they find it hard to do well in other subjects.
Govt will not do anything proactively. Hoping that NGOs will come out with pre-school classes to help these kids.
Good piece of work again SH. But we don’t have to put up with all this from a bunch of leader who have or are cueless at running the country. No need to give to many suggestions, just be brave people and vote them out at the next elections, I’ve always voted against them. The writing is on the wall but they just cannot read it, in total self denial.
the poor has several disadvantage where pre-school going kids are concerned. parents with low income, are often shift workers.
being low income, they may not be able to afford the best learning aides that pre-school kids need. could the lack of stimulus be detrimental to an inquisitive mind? does not having a maid mean less energy & time for the precious little one? family bonding too plays a role in helping a kid to learn. the need to be with parents/adults are more accute with younger children, rich or poor. where money is concern, the poorer families have the odds stacked against them.
for parents whom either 1 or both are shift workers, organising a day trip to the neighbourhood for grocery shopping could be a once in a blue moon affair. shift workers sacrifice more personal, family time, & have to put up with potential health risk then parents who hold onto day jobs. it would not be surprising if shift workers take on more overtime work to make-up for their low income. but that is not to say that day job holding parents knock off on time, especially in S’pore where work hours are generally longer than most in the region. shift work presents additional challenges where family time is concerned.
it was reported some time ago that parents having difficulty picking the kids up from the pre-schools despite the pre-schools operating extended hours. its understandable that staff of pre-school too have their own family life, if not, a work-in-progress. hence cannot cater to all parents with diverse work hours. parents will need assurance that staff running these pre-school are not stressed-out. this, i think is a reasonable 1st line of defence against any form of child abuse.
while females are more readily accepted as pre-school “educators”, will parents warm-up to the notion of having males to compliment the female if there is a shortfall of staff? i dun wish to see yet another profession fall prey to FWs/FTs…
-.-”
admitting there is a problem would be admitting that the govt is incompetent. Expected response from clueless millionaires!
If only education is free, but that is impossible because we might need to cut down on our unnecessarily excessively high defense spending which is more important than education and health care.
Rizal, 1 December 2010
national defence does not come cheap, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be trimmed. national defence will always be the ultimate insurance policy for any country, not only from state actors (hostile countries), but borderless enemies like terrorists, & only armies have the hardware & manpower for humanitarian work.
where budget can be trimmed, the money for education need not be a blanket-wide help. there are families that can afford education on their own after factoring current subsidies that locals enjoy. by giving targeted help, it already saves $$.
what families of pre-school need is more family friendly workplace. as these age group are more prone to falling ill- think HFMD. when there are school closures, parents without maids or grandparents living nearby need to be able to take time-off without affecting their annual appraisals. is it any wonder why birthrates are low? if govt isn’t supportive of parents, more will find parenting a burden & choose not to have kids, leading to national defence issues. chicken & egg problem?…
which part of defence can be cut? salaries!!
^.^
“where budget can be trimmed, the money for education need not be a blanket-wide help”
If national servicemen are able to receive free textbooks, trainings, and food, why should education be any different? Why aren’t students be given the same privileges on the basis that they too contribute to the nation’s needs? Free or heavily subsidised education is the way to go if anyone wishes to overturn the declining population. I believed that there are more areas that can be cut from our defence spending other than salaries which i don’t think should be reduced much due to the ‘risky’ nature of their jobs. NS term can be reduced, a reasonable reduction in military procurement etc. We spend so much money on the military that our defence expenditure is on par with nations that are at war.
Rizal, 1 December 2010
eh, but you forget that only fit men are conscripted, leaving out the entire female population (within similiar age group) & those who are handicapped, pyhsically or otherwise.
for those who join the uniform services, their job risks are more than well-balanced by the remunerations they get, not just salaries. they too enjoy other tangible benefits like a more stable & progressive career, among others that may change from time to time. the dangers most salaried uniform personnel face do not differ much from what conscripts face, unless conscripts are also paid marketrate. for those key appointment holders, they are paid for being decision makers. their decisions may mean life-&-death to frontline troops, so who faces more risks?
other defence cuts should not be openly discussed. i just put out what i deemed as the easiest to implement (similiar to private sector?) without breaching Official Secrets Act.
luckily for pre-schools, where children’s mental development is still in the early stages, expensive cutting edge technology isn’t a pressing need.
I didn’t ‘forget’ that only fit men are conscripted, i simply didn’t say it because there is no need to, to prove my point that reducing NS term serves as a good defence cutting measure.
Unlike conscipts, personnels who are deployed to do peace-keeping missions in countries that are in a state of calamity, face real danger from enemies or nature. The only danger that is of main concern to conscripts is the danger of their weapons misfiring.
rizal, 2 December 2010
my mistake, i jumped into conclusion that contributing to the country (S’pore) means serving NS through conscription. my sincere apologies.
personnel deployed on peacekeeping missions in unstable regions or humanitarian work do face greater risks to their physical well-being. but they have been trained for such tasks & are well-equiped to face the challenges. at least, that is my impression. but from a different perspective, does this mean that salaries should be trimmed for the rest serving locally? & only those who are deployed overseas given additional financial reward? since only a small number is sent, the net result will still be substantial savings….
pre-school education, unlike primary, secondary, tertiary, etc, education do not require large land reserves. most are located at the “void deck” of public housing estates, requiring much less resources. zero traveling costs goes a long way to ease the financial burden of the poorer families.
It is ironic. Most of the people who made comments here probably do not fall into the low income bracket. The real poor grumbles but more or less acclimatise to the local situation. If they do not complain, then it’s fine.