Why parents think PSLE is critical

I REFER to last Saturday's report ('PSLE levels playing field: MM Lee') about the importance of the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and its impact on the education system.

Parents place a heavy emphasis on the PSLE because of the array of different educational avenues awaiting the pupil once he leaves primary school.

The PSLE decides the quality of a child's learning environment in the next five to six years, which is crucial in moulding him as an individual.

A key question one must ask is: How can we expect a 12-year-old child to understand the importance of this examination to his educational future?

Some argue that the O-level examination offers students a second chance to get into a good junior college or polytechnic programme.

I beg to differ. If the child does not do well in the PSLE, his learning environment in secondary school may not help him realise his hidden potential.

Furthermore, the tendency to gauge an individual's worth on the basis of the secondary school he attends is likely to further erode a child's self-esteem.

As for JC entry, the chances are becoming slimmer as a larger share of places in the best colleges are locked in for integrated programme students from the better secondary schools.

So it should not surprise anyone that it is becoming even more vital for a child to perform well in the PSLE.

While the PSLE may have its merits, it is obvious that it is an examination that discriminates against late bloomers.

It is unfair to place such an extreme burden on 12-year-old children who may not understand the gravity of the PSLE's implications.

Shalaka Nanda Kumar (Miss)

Singapore Education System – Comparison, Issues & Challenges

Is this country's education system on the right track?

Parents and children have been worrying and struggling to cope with our highly stressed school system that has been caused by the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) aggressive streaming of students at too young an age and, the branding and ranking of schools. This has resulted in an climate of elitism in our education system. To be part of this elite, a “kiasu” and “kiasee” mentality has developed. Educators find themselves drawn into this culture and mentality, which results in a heavy workload as they try to keep their students up. If educators themselves are also feeling the stress from an increasingly heavy workload, what more their charges?

It is a fact that each student is different, with vastly different skills and abilities. While we should invest to help the gifted pupils to learn better and faster, this should not be done at the expense of the rest. Currently, gifted students are put into special classes to make them feel that they are the best, building in them a sense of arrogance which could polarise society. Thus, instead of segregation, I believe that we should provide them with after school programmes, equivalent to the Co-Curricular Activities (CCA), to help them to further develop their interests.

According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) done in 2006, cited by MOE in a 2007 survey by the Fraser Institute, Singapore was ranked fourth among 45 education systems. This is indeed a very impressive achievement that we, as Singaporeans, can be proud of. Dr Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS, also proudly claimed that educational leaders around the world are flocking to Singapore to copy Singapore's successful educational model. He said that some North American schools are even using similar textbooks as those used in Singaporean schools.

Many first world countries may not have a perfect education system but the reliability of the survey is questionable. One has to question the criteria and sample size used for the survey. Weaknesses notwithstanding, most citizens of these countries are proud of their education system and will not trade it for the aggressive streaming system of Singapore, where one's future and career is based solely on academic results.

Studies have shown that passing standardised examinations with good grades does not necessarily mean that one has a better knowledge of the subject than another with lesser or failing grades. Excellent academic results should not simply be the holy grail of an education. Besides good examination skills, hard work, self-discipline, time commitment and mental capacity to learn and absorb the knowledge and are vital aspects as well.

Let’s take a look at the education system in Canada to illustrate how academic results are not the only barometer of success.

According to UNESCO in its 2007 annual report, Canada's literacy rate was 99% and it was placed 19th in the world, while Singapore's 94.4% and placed it at 74th. In Canada, children there are encouraged, at a young age, to develop at their own natural pace. Needless to say, there is no streaming. While Canada may not compare well with the Singapore education system in terms of world rankings, and Canadian students may not do as well in mathematics and science tests as their Singaporean counterparts, Canada has produced 18 Nobel Prize winners, 44 Olympic medallists (of which 9 were gold) in the last three Olympic Games. This is in addition to the hundreds of world-renowned entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, writers, actors and singers. If we look at population ratio as a measure, Singapore should have produced at least three Nobel Prize winners and scores of artists and writers. Hong Kong, with a comparable population, has managed to have one Nobel Prize winner, many Olympic medallists and entrepreneurs. Israel too does not enjoy the high ranking and the good educational track record Singapore enjoys. However, to date, Israel, with a population of only 7.5 million, has produced nine Nobel Prize winners and, astronauts that participate in NASA space shuttle missions. Even Saint Lucia, a small island with a population of only 200,000, has produced two Nobel laureates.

Let's make another comparison with another first world country – Finland. This country has a population of 5.3 million, compared to the 5 million in Singapore. Finland's world ranking in Science and Mathematics was first and second respectively, based on PIRLS and Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (as reported by Tom Burridge of BBC World News America). Singapore is ranked fourth, based on PIRLS, as reported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore (MOE). It is surprising that Finnish pupils spend the least number of hours in their school and on homework compared to the other first world countries. Students in Singapore are doing the opposite. To date, Finland has produced 4 Nobel Prize Laureates. Singapore has yet to produce our first Nobel Prize winner.

What has MOE achieved over the last 45 years? Is producing bilingual graduates or pupils their only aim?

The suicide by a medical student from the National University of Singapore (the ninth by a student in from a tertiary institution this year), the fight between rugby players and spectators from Anglo-Chinese School and Saint Andrew’s Secondary School, two elite schools, as well as the recent sex-video of the two pupils from Anglo-Chinese Junior College, strongly reflect serious issues with our society. As children become more exposed in an increasingly connected world through the internet, busy parents are finding that they increasingly do not have the time to inculcate appropriate values in the upbringing of their children. What roles do our schools play in the area of moral education? Are moral lessons only taught religious institutions? Should it be so? Should this be the educational model that other countries aspire to and learn from?

One challenge that we have is to have more successful, world renowned and sustainable companies like Singapore Airlines. A strategic direction and policy shift is not a choice if we truly wish to join the first world competitive league, which implies that a country is sustainable and competitive, with highly innovative companies and a thinking workforce.

The essence of such success is none other than the people our education system has to develop. This is a long term process – Bai Nian Shu Ren – and is not going to be accomplished by the work of one or two ministers of education over one or two terms. Having enjoyed the fruit of the hard work of our forefathers, the continuous and sustained development and enhancement of a system is now our greatest challenge. The strategic importance of education cannot be rated any lower than say, that of defence. As such, the welfare, benefits and prestige of an educational scholarship cannot be perceived to be less superior to that of a defence scholarship. Perhaps the time is ripe for a president scholarship to be offered to MOE scholarship holders.

In the longer term, MOE should raise the educational level of its existing teaching staff to a minimum of a post graduate level, even for primary school teachers. Secondly, improving the teacher-pupil ratio is a pressing priority which will help to enhance teaching effectiveness, reduce teacher fatigue and foster closer teacher-pupil relationships. To encourage teachers to improve themselves, teaching bursaries and scholarships should be offered to all. Only after we have highly motivated and committed teachers, then and only then will we be able to truly develop a world class education system.

Gangs Attacks

26 yo attacked in Yishun/Sembawang on 10 Nov. This attack comes after two gangs attacks that have resulted in 1 death, 7 injured and 40 arrests.
Is our country any safer now? Why so many youths turning to gangs? Is our schools just focused on developing the elites - mother's tongue, learning of languages, PSLE/IP - programmes (steaming/meritocratic - ranking)? What is the weightage and emphasis on moral education by MOE?

Speaker's Corner Speech on Haze by Wilson Foo

22nd October 2010 (Friday)

Good morning, Singapore. I am here at Speaker's Corner this day to talk about a problem that surrounds Singapore, that envelops us and is right before our eyes, that leaves our throats dry and can even make our eyes tear.

You can see it for yourselves right now. The problem that we face this day is the haze. It may give our photographs a nice and fuzzy glow, but there is really nothing nice and fuzzy about it. Year after year, the people of South East Asia are subjected to this noxious smog that has deleterious effects on our health and casts a gloomy grey shadow over our cities.

Much of the haze, as we know, is caused by the practice of slash and burn agriculture. Primitive farmers continue to burn forests in order to increase the fertility of their land, heedless of the damaging health effects caused to the other peoples of the region. Before we ascribe ill will to these farmers, however, we may give them the benefit of the doubt - they may perhaps not have contemplated the consequences of their disagreeable actions. They have probably received limited education and a clear message has not been put to them that their form of agriculture brings the rest of us very much grief.

ASEAN, to its credit, has recognised that Transboundary Haze Pollution is a serious environmental concern. The ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution was signed on 10 June 2002 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The treaty has been ratified by Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, our very own Singapore, and even Myanmar. Conspicuously absent from the list is one of the founding members of ASEAN and one of its largest democracies. That nation, as you may have guessed, is Indonesia, of which Sumatra, the very place from which much of the haze is emanating from, is a part.

It is alarming that Indonesia has not ratified this treaty. Sumatra alone contains numerous hot spots, more than anywhere else in the region. According to HazeOnline, the ASEAN website dedicated to haze monitoring, fires in peat soils have been identified as a major contributor to transboundary haze pollution in the region, and Indonesia has about 70% of the region’s peatlands. Sumatra also has large numbers of slash and burn cultivators. The gains made by the efforts of the rest of ASEAN cannot possibly match the immense good that can be done by Indonesia by ratifying and implementing this treaty. In fact, Fitrian Ardiansyah, Director, Climate and Energy, World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) Indonesia, said in 2008, "Without Indonesia in favour of pushing this agenda at the regional level, there won't be any trans-boundary haze agreement."

Indonesia has mentioned that it will not ratify the treaty unless it includes agreements on illegal logging and fishing. With respect, the Indonesian stance of bartering its agreement on haze for the prevention of economic loss is untenable. The position taken by the Indonesian authorities is overly short term and fails to recognise that haze is an environmental problem like no other. In terms of the numbers of people it affects and its negative health effects, it may be orders of magnitude higher than some other environmental problems. The haze affects each and every one of us, including the population of Indonesia. Where the physical well being of people is being affected, concerns on economic loss should take a back seat.

Money can never give us back our health. The health effects of haze on healthy people include sneezing, running nose, eye irritation, dry throat and dry cough, which cause discomfort. However, the effects on persons with medical problems like asthma, chronic lung disease, chronic sinusitis and allergic skin conditions are more severe and they may even have to be sent to hospital. Money will also not buy us new forests and a new earth. The peatlands and forests destroyed by haze may be irreparably damaged and the huge amounts of carbon released into the air may exacerbate the problem of global warming. Forest fires, unmanaged, not only cause an increase in pollution, they destroy the very organisms that help to alleviate pollution, trees.

This day, I urge President Yudhoyono, the government and the legislature of Indonesia to take concrete steps to put an end to this scourge that plagues our region. The slash and burn cultivators have to be educated on the negative effects of haze pollution and told to cease and desist from their practices. They need to be taught other methods of farming that do not harm the environment by causing air pollution. Enforcement efforts should be stepped up and there should be more effort dedicated to the setting up of firefighting response teams. I urge Indonesia to expediently ratify the ASEAN Haze treaty, which will boost the progress of our entire region, including Indonesia.

I also hope that the people of Indonesia understand the plight that has been caused to us as a result of the haze, and hope that Indonesian civic society will take an interest in educating these slash and burn farmers on better and more sustainable agricultural practices. I understand that World Wildlife Foundation Indonesia has spoken out against the haze problem, and applaud their concern for Indonesia's environment. We appreciate every effort by the Indonesian people to reduce the problem of air pollution in the region.

Finally, I have a message for the slash and burn farmers. Please, have a heart, and understand that your actions have made many of us suffer and become sick. There are better ways to farm, like using fertilisers and better crop varieties. Please stop burning your forests and destroying your own environment. The smoke is bad for you too. Thank you. Sila berhenti membakar yang hutan-hutan. Terima Kasih.

Singapore MOE on the Right Track?

Our education system by Singapore MOE should be training our pupils how to think, not what to think, not about answering exams questions smartly but asking creative questions - this is the fundamental of all researches, inventions and discoveries.

The Calm Before The Storm: Is the Singapore Education System In Crisis?

If Singapore is likened to a well-oiled economic machinery, churning out manufactured goods and services to meet global demand; then her education system functions like a factory, producing and moulding bolts and cogs – the students – to fit into the system. Teaching-learning processes are coldly perceived as mere means to an end; while individuals in the respective institutions blindly pursue perfect grades and polished résumés for that coveted degree to land that dream job. Such a system and approach has worked in tandem with our socio-economic and political goals, producing professionals in the form of doctors, lawyers, public administrators; and workers in the form of managers, engineers et cetera. In essence, students emerge as productive units of labour – through our rigid and antiquated system – to feed the assortment of national needs.

But this is a different world. The dynamism of the global community – galvanised by the advent of globalisation and modernisation – not only means that Singaporeans are inundated with a greater plethora of expectations and challenges, but also reflects the fact that blind adherence to our pedantic education curriculum and pedagogies would prove to be largely detrimental. Graduates would continue to emerge as empty shells: over-achievers in academic or scholastic performances, but overwhelmingly defective in their innovative capabilities, and deficient in life-skills with misdirected moral compasses.

How Examinations Are Killing Our Children

The value of examinations lies largely in their standardisation; basically, the implementation of an individual test or assessment in a certain domain would give teachers and students a gauge of the latter’s comprehension of that subject-matter. However, our attitudes towards examinations, and the desires of parents and teachers to place disproportionate emphasis on the end-results have sadly reduced many students to mere information-blabbering, knowledge-regurgitating, result- and achievement- oriented book smarts. To them, the ten to twelve years of foundation education is seen as a protracted preparation or application process for their universities.

Teachers are subtle victims of these expectations. The repeated concerns over superficial test-based preparations pressure them to rush through the prescribed syllabus, often without genuine care over the contents and subjects. After all, why bother about the significance of individual topics when stakeholders are asking for rote-learning, imparting of examination techniques and test practice to obtain the ideal grades?

Besides grossly betraying the spirit of education, our insistence is also hurting and disadvantaging students who might not be academically-inclined. The truth is that the inflexibility of the subject combinations and platforms for true learning is stifling the creative minds of many of our young people. There are insufficient avenues for them to showcase their true talents, and conservative mindsets prevent them from exploring extra-curricular fields they might be more accustomed to. Unfortunately, their inaptitude is conveniently dismissed as laziness and stupidity, without accounting for their strengths.

An Education Dead-End?

If we cannot completely eliminate examinations and its associated ramifications, the Ministry of Education (MOE) should continue its endeavours to reduce the number of these assessments. Introducing the Integrated Programme (IP), doing away with year-end examinations for various primary one and two students in select institutions: these are commendable efforts, yet the administration has relished in its conservatism and staunchly refused to take greater steps. Having been the part of the pioneer batch that experienced IP in its entirety – despite the eventual fluster for the GCE ‘A’ Level Examinations – the absence of a major examination and the adoption of holistic and year-based assessment allowed for greater liberty in exploration of fields of interest.

To segregate content based on their subject demarcations closes many doors for the student, as the mentality is geared to examination preparation and questions. It neglects inter-disciplinary integrity and strays away from a broad-based curriculum. Geography and Science share many common perceptions towards global warming, helping individuals form more wholesome understandings in terms of the issue; yet many stray away from such partnerships for fear of overlaps and unjustified conflicts.

MOE needs to work more closely with educators to devise methodologies to reinforce to students the purpose of teaching-learning and the respective subjects. Instead of shoving information and facts crudely down the throats of students, give them the space to contemplate the significance of what they are studying in. Besides the obvious importance of mastering linguistics – and the obvious decline in bilingualism – students should weigh for themselves why the humanities are essential, why the sciences are vital. As this independence is accompanied by moderation from the teachers, parents and students would be able to make more informed decisions about what they should study, and how much emphasis they should place.

An International Phenomenon?

Sir Ken Robinson, an international advisor on education, contended in 2006 during his Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) presentation on the state of schools that institutions were increasingly educating students out of their creative faculties. He subsequently made reference to the Pablo Picasso quote that “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”. Sir Robinson acknowledges multiple types of intelligences, and is calling for a much-needed rethink of the global education system; and how we teach our kids.

Rather than allowing it to be an excuse for us to continue our ways, it should serve as an impetus for us to keep ahead of the competition. We do not need book smarts sorely lacking in emotional and adversity quotients; worse still, supposed “scholars” who selfishly care for their personal well-being, stubbornly rejecting all forms of information that serve no fruitful purpose. Neither should we stigmatise individuals who might excel in other areas. It is not only high time to bring creativity back to the classroom, but also return to back-to-basics education; a system that teaches us how to think, not what to think.


- Kwan Jin Yao

别来春半 - 南唐李后主

别来春半，触目柔肠断。砌下落梅如雪乱，拂了一身还满。

雁来音信无凭，路遥归梦难成。离恨恰如春草，更行更远还生。

寻春须是先春早，看花莫待花枝老。缥色玉柔擎，醅浮盏面清。

何妨频笑粲，禁苑春归晚。同醉与闲平，诗随羯鼓成。

李煜 - 南唐李后主