The educational system in Singapore
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Every now and again we read from the papers that Singapore has yet produced a top student in the areas of mathematics and sciences, that we are one of the fastest progressing country in terms of intellectual ability and such. The ordinary lad on the street approaches such news with utmost delight, yet I think those who have really gone through the ten sickening years of basic education in Singapore can tell you a lot of things that is unknown and unheard of in the public.
I think that it is important that we question whether is it worthwhile for us to scarifice our children's teenage years, a period of time whereby they are most easily influenced and vulnerable, to hours of studying inside and outside school. I hate it when 15 years has come to pass, and my children tell me that all they remember of their childhood years are those of constant mugging and dead memorizing of textbook materials. Face it. Too many people are placing too much emphasis on certificate values and such, and who's to blame honestly? The truth is our children's intellectual and social development is hankered and retarded by the way the Singapore educational system is shaped. Instead of focusing on core values and motivations behind education, schools these days place too much control and underlining to stuffs like memorizing and reading from the textbooks.
Answer me honestly. The O level exams are not a correct judgement and guage of a student's intellectual capability, it is but a measure of the amount of effort somebody puts in to memorize tons of notes from some textbook materials. Tell me, you do not need much brains to get a distinction in the History exams, you just need an awful lot of time on your hands and a good old damn history textbook. The way that society shapes itself to ensure that only the students who performed better in the O level exams are given the best chances to proceed on to higher educational instituitions is a shameful and pathetic representation and symbol of our society's inability to make the most of our people's potential, and the incorrect and naive emphasis on paper qualifications.
But who are to blame really? I think each of us should be brave and courageous enough to take a step back and realize that we all have a role to play in this shit. That is, all of us, somehow or another, contributes to this failure of the society, very much alike a snowball effect. Nobody is willing to budge and give in from this aspect. Tell me who would want to hire somebody that's graudated from some shit educational institute when he can choose someone else over him from some better institute.
I think the educational system should place more emphasis on the likes of creativity and IQ. Too many children these days are spending their time memorizing things from the textbooks. In this sense, most subjects are dead and therefore contradictory to their very purpose. This is not a test of their intellectual capability, but a test of their memory. It is a sad case therefore for society to place judgement on a particular individual based on certificates derived from his memory.
Thank you and hope to hear your replies soon. -
I guess the real root of the problem is in our roots honestly. Singapore has a larger Chinese population, and in the Chinese's academic history, scholars would memorize literature for their imperial exams. I believe that, this belief has been carried over since the ancient times, over seas and to where we are now. It is in the Chinese culture to memorize and memorize... and the larger population has indeed affected the rest of the population.
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I am presently an overseas student studying in Australia, before i go into my point of view i would like to provide some figures, yearly i spent SGD$30 000 on my education annually for 4 years - Combined Degree.
As a Singaporean, i find it hard to understand or i am ignorant, why is not every Singaporean given the chance to study at their own local university, everyone should be qualified to enter the university just because he is a Singaporean. Meanwhile as we know in NUS and NTU, there are tonz of overseas students there - Reason: Government want to attract foreign talents in Singapore. When you have 4 million citizens here, instead of economize all the 4 million, the government simply neglect the basic rights of the people and concentrate on a Greater Singapore View. In the end i would said, Singaporean will be stated in Consituition Law as Indigenous People.
Secondly, on the view point of an economist, Singaporeans students are spending millions of dollars each month overseas for education and this is weakening the currency and reducing the expense in Singapore, just imagine if the money is spent in the Island, it would generates thousands of jobs per year and improves the life, just building one university would put thousands of people in job , from cleaners to Lecturers !
Lastly, the system of Singapore education have a major flaw. As we all know, there are different types of intelligence and talents in everyone, there are lots of scenarios where by considered "gifted" student flaunked in their O Level or when they are in University, for no reason. Whereas those students who crummed out by the Education System travelled overseas and take up their degree, they outscored their peers in Singapore in terms of their achievements. The government is like basin trying to contain all the water from the pipe, but it does not know that it has a leaking hole... in time to come, Singaporeans will be replaced
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Meritocracy, thats what its called. I guess its the government's way of pushing its own population to remain competitive with foreign talents. If we view university education as a default right, without the need of qualification, aren't we the same as the neighbours up north? I will comment no further on that. The thing is, Singapore is really short on talents, due to our small population. We really have no choice but to take foreign talents if we want to have a better tomorrow. I agree there has to be a limit to this, after all, citizenship has to come with privileges.
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Actually, we inherited our educational system from the British. As time passed, and as knowledge increased, the curriculum naturally became more bloated.
Nevertheless, there have been improvements though perhaps for some, they have come too slowly.
For one thing, ever since the advent of streaming, the attrition rate has fallen: there are less dropouts, and more people are studying for longer years.
With the global shift in power, America is now number 1, and our system is slowly beginning to resemble theirs. Strangely, the changes seem to begin from the University level but should gradually reach the lower levels. The idea of project work is one such sign.
In the last five years or so, there has been an attempt to lighten the curriculum by trimming about 20% off. In its place are initiatives such as IT, creative thinking and national education.
Unfortunately, the IT road ahead is not as clear. Whilst the government has pumped lots of money into supplying schools with hardware, there has been little benefit to show for it. We have no real examples to emulate here and the use of IT in education, even in the developed countries, have not been an all-out success. Our investment in this area though has been tremendous.
Creativity is another bugbear. Even experts are not convinced that it can be taught. I feel that more emphasis should be given to subjects like Art and Music in primary schools but sadly, right now, this is not happening. Those teaching Art in primary schools for instance, are less than well-trained in the subject. How can creativity be nurtured in this manner?
As for National Education, it is dull propaganda more than anything. Before its demise, the Project Eyeball people produced their best work when they made an issue out of this.
But perhaps we underestimate the difficulties of carrying out changes at such a massive level. In the meanwhile, we should appreciate the strengths of our education system. Most of our young people are firmly grounded in English (compare our proficiency in the language to that of the Japanese, for example), numeracy as well as a second language, amongst other things.
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I personally don't think creativity can be thought. But rather cultured, and instilled. Honestly, i feel that Singapore's education system is too restricitive, everything is done by the book. Creativity of students is often stemmed and punished rather than encouraged. Often, acts of vandalisms like drawing on tables (exception of obscene images and messages), displays some bits of creativity going thru a student's mind.
I did hear of a school that allows students to scribble on their desks. The desk is covered with a layer of thick paper. Students scribble and draw as they like.
Another fact is that, creativity is often confused with IQ. Creative students were often shown as bright students. Teachers themselves look at it this way, often ignoring creativity from other students who are not as bright. -
I think the big point to be made is that our culture demands hard-studying.
To be honest, I didn't do that much studying for the 'O's or mug like crazy like others seem to think. (I think my results were OK.) Most of the blame can't be hurled at the exam itself - after all, it does try to test students' knowledge-application skills. But I ask what the students who can't take new types of questions in exams will do. Obviously they're going to try to mug and study further.
I don't think dead regurgitation is so prized any more - at least not in the 'name' schools. Everyone wants to go creative and critical thinking, so now there're more projects and 'thinking' questions. Good right?
We should be glad we're not as indisciplined as certain other Western nations on average and can emerge tops in math and science comparative studies. Need to focus on encouraging students (as many as possible) to really probe these subjects themselves instead of studying them only by compulsion -I haven't met any sec/JC student with a real interest in science for quite a while. Prob is, school and CCAs take up helluva lotta time so it's difficult to develop talent.
Take a cue from the US. While education there is certainly is far from perfect, it caters to all ends of the spectrum, from disabled kids to the gifted and talented. Students can even take university-level courses if they are ready for it for self-enrichment. Why hold back minds here by confining them to their core subjects?
BTW in response to one of the previous posters, I think it's a tad ridiculous to expect/want all S'poreans to go to university. We don't have anywhere near the space, and do keep in mind university courses stress the academic versus the technical. From a purely practical point of view, you can't have a nation of engineers, research scientists and English professors. -
Actually the feeling I get is we're trying to mimic too many systems all at the same time. Our universities want to be like Oxford and Cambridge. Now, they also want to be like Harvard and MIT. All these 4 institutions have radically different traditions!
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We have an intensive education system here. If you just cross the causeway, people there tell you that their studies are more relaxed than in Singapore