Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Singapore Education – There is nothing wrong with it

There is a wise saying, don’t fix it if there is nothing wrong. And that is exactly what is happening to our education system. What is so wrong with our education system that needs fixing? The only thing I can see is that they are trying to do too much with our students, wanting every child to be a superman. Actually more than superman, they want them to be man of steel, can sing and can dance, can be artist, can be engineers or scientists or what not, all rolled into one. And that this not all, they want to be mountain climbers, adventurers, humanitarians and entrepreneurs.  Come off it, ask yourself if you can even be good in two of the items mentioned. What happens is that a child would not have time to be good in anything. But then that is not true either. Our children, the best of the best, are extremely talented in their pursuit of excellence. They know what they want and what matters and would not be made a fool and be misled into doing the unnecessary. Their straight As are not flukes and confirmed by all the best universities in the world.

What then is wrong with our education system and policies? No, there is nothing wrong. It is the reckless and irresponsible policies of hiring rubbish from around the world and calling them talents and treating our children as no talents. How silly can they be? We have the best universities and a no nonsense examination system that would not allow cheatings or buying of fake certificates and degrees, and we go around the world, into little villages and slum cities to dig into their dustbins to pick up the craps, bring them home and call them talents. And we replaced our own talents, strong in the hard disciplines with cheap talkers with fake degrees?

Now there is this myth that is circulating like a bad joke. Singaporeans have no talents, no skill sets, unemployable, not good enough for top management. The best are from unknown village universities. The big question is that no one, not a single turkey in authority, in the govt, in business, in the academia, not a single educator, is brave enough or sensible enough to talk back. No one thinks this nonsensical myth needs to be debunked. No one thinks it is his duty and responsibility to defend our education system, that the products of our education system are genuine, the real mccoys, no bluff, that they are really good stuff. They choose to believe in this myth, that the products of our education system are rubbish, unusable, unemployable.

When the sick jokers from the 3rd World come here to insult and rubbish our talents, calling the products of our world class education system as duds, while the fakes are brought in to replace them, everyone nods his head like a donkey, like hearing a gospel truth.

Would there be anyone standing up to defend our education system? Would the govt put this right by new policies to ensure our best are employed in good jobs and not be turned into temporary staff or be underemployed?  If the govt also believes in this myth, that we have no talents and the products of our world best education system are duds, no amount of tweaking and magic will be able to make our students better. They are already the best of the best. But we allowed others to put a dounce hat on them and called them no talents.

Did anyone get what I am saying? Did anyone see anything wrong with our education system and policies and the stupidity of our employment policies? If they cannot see anything wrong, they would be barking up the wrong tree, blaming our education system, that the products of our education system are a waste of time and resources.

Who is responsible for this mess and to perpetuate this silly myth at the expense of our citizens and their well being?

2 comments:

DirectPoly Singapore said...

Indeed some of your contention brought across the article may be relevant to "Singapore education" as discussed in the article. With reference to Robert Greene, his Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit book in 1592, "Jack of all trades, master of none". With the demanding education system in place, it'll place high expectations on students. Take for instance Singapore CCA policy by MOE was introduced in 2000 and this leads to the LEAPS system where it grade student on their CCA records. With the introduction of the new policy (or rather most), this causes an increase expectations on student exponentially. Thus, resulting in more students going to their CCA just to achieve and meet the requirements to establish their LEAPS system - Student lost the values in them and knowing the importance of CCA and it's fundamental. This now become a 'chore'. On the other hand, I'm not in any way condemning the education policy put in place. After all, the policy put in place is to allow students to be exposed to a diverse learning to put them to test. This will not only challenge their academic skills in schools but also allowing them to gain new experiences. And I quote, "The only source of knowledge is experience." by Albert Einstein. Lastly, sometimes there's more to one side. Sometimes, there's no right or wrong. Sometimes, it's just from the perception of one's view. And last but not least before I end off, "Jack of all trades, master of none.. through often times better than a master of one."

Truth is, there's always pros and cons to a policy implemented - and that depends on how we look at things.

- Daniel Tay
http://directpoly.com

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Daniel, welcome to the blog.

We are demanding too much from our students. That is not necessary bad. But they forgot that the education policy does not exist in isolation. To the rich that do not need a job, education can be just for education's sake. But for many, education is to get a job, earn a living, support a family. If the govt does not coordinate the different ministries to harmonies their policies, we will end up with the MOM allowing every joker, fakes and cheats to come here and take jobs that should go to our well trained and educated children.

Alas, we have jokers in charge and they do not see the need to make sure right hand and left hand clap together. Now the employment and education scenes are in a mess, chaos. And the victims are our very own children, paying for very expensive education but unemployeable or branded as duds, no talents.

How sick has thing become?