The future is bright for Sinkies

Try reading the titles of the two articles below to get a grasp of the direction and the opportunities available for young Sinkies.
 
‘PM Lee assures young Singaporeans future is bright opportunities are plentiful – Singapolitics.sg’ and ‘Singapore government looking to encourage young Singaporeans to become carpenters with training and “rebranding”’. 

This is no joking matter, serious. It was reported from as far as China and by China.org.cn and I quote, ‘The NTUC, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency and the Singapore Furniture Industries Council also jointly launched a 3.5 million dollar program to train 180 carpenters in the next two years. The funding will cover their training and salary subsidies for employers. They are also considering efforts to rebrand carpenters as creative craftsmen to woo the young people.’
 
With the launch of this scheme they might bring in Chinese carpenters, oops I mean creative craftsmen masters, to train our young in creative carpentry. And this is not the first time ministers are talking about retraining our young. Some have been encouraged to become hawkers and crane drivers. Some have been encouraged not to pursue a tertiary education.
 
I wonder who Lucas Film are recruiting if young Sinkies are not encouraged to do tertiary education or IT related staff but to be hawkers and carpenters. I am too used to call a carpenter a carpenter and still have difficulties calling them creative craftsmen. There may be a rebranding of our hawkers to something like Tropical Alfesco Chef. Sounds great right? Hope it will be attractive enough to lure our young into making hawking a career.

Singapore Maths in Latin America

A few years back we heard that our Maths teaching syllabus for primary schools were so good that some American schools have started to adopt it into their systems and were very happy with the results. Today it is reported that Latin American schools are also happily adopting our Maths syllabus in their schools in Chile, Columbia and Panama.
 
Are these countries so out of touch with the real world? At the rate things are going, Singapore will be adopting Indian School syllabus to replace our syllabus. The Indians are producing many bright finance professionals to head big MNC banks and even Singapore banks. Their engineers and IT professionals are also in demand in the West and also in Singapore. This must have a lot to do with the way they are teaching their Maths.
 
Knowing that Singapore will always rush to whichever country that is producing good results, the way the Indians are teaching their Maths must soon be receiving serious attentions. Somehow our syllabi are not producing the kind of results that we want and many of our graduates are not good enough for anything except to drive taxis. The Sinkies are even discouraged to pursue tertiary education and to spend their energy in highly lucrative professions like hawkers and crane drivers. No university degrees needed.
 
As change and changing teaching methodology and syllabus are the new constants in Singapore, do not be alarmed if someone would suggest switching to Indian Maths. Some academic has already sang great praises on India’s low cost engineering. This may be introduced sooner in the university than Indian Maths to our schools.
 
Singapore is progressing rapidly from 1st World to Out of this World. Today India is in vogue and Indians are in great demand in Singapore. India used to mesmerize the Europeans with its mystics. Today is it mesmerizing Singapore in everything. Singapore is investing in very big ways in India and it will be no surprise if Singapore becomes the Number One foreign investor in India. And there is the CECA as testimony to the great admiration we have for the quality of India’s graduates and professionals.

MOE thinking frugal

Front page news in the ST, ‘Funding cuts of top independent schools in Spore’. The MOE is cutting funds to the top 6 independent schools and on top of that it is telling them to moderate fund raising activities for campus upgrading. The schools have been told to switch classroom ventilation from air conditioners to fans.
 
This is definitely a costing cutting measure. The question is why? Not enough funds or curbing on excessive expenditure on perks and luxuries? Many parents see this as a good move, to stop schools from going wild with money and what money can buy for comfort and the non essentials.
 
While the MOE is cutting such funding, presumably to curb waste, hopefully the savings would not be diverted to provide more scholarships and assistance to foreign students here. And hopefully there will also be substantive cuts on funding for foreign students and divert the money saved to assist the children of citizens. I said children of citizens, not children of locals. Must make this doubly clear.
 
So, what’s up MOE?
 
PS. I must acknowledge that we have the finest and most modern infrastructure for our schools. Not very sure about the software, which so far has proven to be quite shitty as we are producing duds that cannot compete with 3rd World talents who comfortably came here to replace our local talents from our education system in top jobs. What kind of shit is happening? Don’t ask me for answers.