9/25/2012

Solving the education dilemma by a farcical solution



What is the problem of education today anyway? Pressure, parents under pressure because children could not get to the best schools, not because children not doing well. Children also feel the pressure if they failed to get into the school their parents desired though they have done reasonably well. I think this is the real problem rather than the perceived problem of students not doing well. Those not doing well can be helped up to a certain extent. Those doing well need little help but would still be under severe pressure because they did not get to the schools they wanted.

Scrapping bandings, scrapping PSLE, do away with exam, lesser the work load etc are in some way superficial and could undermine the whole education system. What all parents and students want is to get into RI or one of the top schools. Get them there and all will be happy. But there is only one RI or a few top schools. And the task now is to make parents and children happy, to remove any social stigma of being in less desirable schools, the answer is to put all of them into good schools. And the solution is not so difficult. Really!

ACS has done it but many failed to see it. Establish many ACS schools, independent, international, non independent, afternoon session, etc etc. As long as the students are in ACS, problem solved. Everyone is happy.

The trick is thus very simple. All schools will henceforth be renamed to take on the top schools’ namesake. We can have RI Independent, RI Normal, RI Sports, RI Vocational, RI Wild Cards etc etc. A variation could be RI Bishan, RI East Coast, RI Jurong.... And the same formula can be duplicated for Hwa Chong, Victoria, SGS, Methodist, etc etc. There shall not be more than ten different school names and the subtle difference will be the courses the students are pursuing and their field of studies or interests.

In so doing, no need to scrap PSLE and examinations. 10 percent of the cohort will be RI, 10 percent Hwa Chong, 10 percent ACS, MGS, SGS, Victoria and so forth. No funny sounding neighbourhood school names that brings along a ‘yak’ when mentioned, or too embarrassing to even mention.

Now, would this not make everyone happy and less pressurized? Every top school will now have its top academic students, its top sporting talents, top artistic students, and the potential Bill Gates and Steve Jobs from the Wild Cards. And whatever the MOE is doing now can still continue with a little adaptation.

An ingenious education system can easily be created without the need for super talent’s input. The Ah Beng’s are our equivalent of Gates and Jobs in a way. Thinking out of the box for unusual solutions to unusual problems that no super talents can ever solve or think of is the forte of Ah Bengs. The problems facing MOE today are not genuine problems but perception and psychological problems that have no real solutions. Every new Education Minister will have to change something to give the impression that something is done. Imaginery problems must be solved in the realm of creative imaginations.

Thus, the solution cannot be real but appeasing to the unreasonable demands and expectations of fictitious problems in the minds of parents and students. And the standard and quality of the education system need not be compromised in anyway.

11 comments:

Veritas said...

Call me a conspiracy monger. I believe MOE has agenda to screw especially the lower income students. I taught in NT, and also in best class of a fairly good school. For good students with good parents, you really can have no exams until A levels. They will perform better. These people are already motivated

For the NT/NA students, you need a tough guys to hammer them, force them to study (you will end up in court if you do this). Their families are broken. They could have 3 mother and 4 father. They could go out screw here screw there. You cannot expect laissez faire and they get self motivated.

If you give these kids freedom, they will rot.

So, I believe we cannot have a single "bo chap" education system This is extremely bias towards the rich. We need a 2 tier school. The motivated students could go to a more free environment so that we don kill their talent.

We should also create a more regimental school for challenging students.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Seriously, our education system is quite comprehensive and of course the rich will be in a better position to benefit from the system with their financial resources. This is not their fault.

At the bottom, there are those that tried as you might, it will be very tough. But our system is comprehensive enough and has provided a wide range of schools to cater for the different abilities, motivation and gifted. Some are gifted in arts, crafts, sports etc.

The problematic ones are those that try to fit square pegs into round holes and with unreasonable parents with unreasonable expectations, wanting a stress free system and scoring As or wanting an average students to be admitted into the top schools.

The problems and issues are quite diverse and there are many levels and types of solutions available. There is no one solution to fit all.

jjj2usg said...

hahahahahaha Yes!!! you said it all!!! lol

Anonymous said...

But at the end one lose out to FT right? May be its better to enrol the kids into FT school, no pressure and cheaper too. What do you think?

Anonymous said...

But at the end one lose out to FT right? May be its better to enrol the kids into FT school, no pressure and cheaper too. What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Any real good FT schools must be in Mumbai.

Anonymous said...

The problem with ACS that after having established so many ACS related schools, the brand name is greatly diluted. Most people no longer look at RI and ACS in the same light. ACS is now at least 2 tier below RI in reputation.

Anonymous said...

@ Veritas,

It was the old school system that stifled me and despised me ....

So we should create more regimental school for challenging students?

Why would we want to churn out more unthinking or motivated automatons?

Its the quality of the education and the educator ...

Sadly our school system does not live up to its promised..

Most of my knowledge i gained on my own and our school system was put in place to dampen my passion for learning.

I do feel they are doing this more for the imported children who cannot hack it in our schools then for the local ones

Bengster

Veritas said...

The alternative is

1) let those NT kids sleep for 4 years. Let them rot.

2) Maybe you can have tender loving care teacher. But teacher student ratio drop to 1-4 per lesson.

Veritas said...

I agree that we can do away exam for RI, NUS high school and Hwa Chong. We can have a variety of program for them and let them choose whether tbey want to study.

For NT kids, they already do not have any motivations for study. A few kicks on their backside will not dampen further their zeal to study as they already don have any.

Maybe we can create a 2 tier NT stream also. One is regimental type and one is laissez fair type. See at the end of 4 years, which stream have the better outcome.

Anonymous said...

Sinkies are the easiest to con and propaganda repeated often enough will do the trick.

Whatever dilemma there is is all created by the PAP. Streaming, schools ranking, SAP schools, Gifted Programmes, whatever shit are all the creation of the PAP. One day they tell everyone this is necessary, and the next day they say it is not necessary. Parents have to suffer as a result of all those changes.

They are not solving problems, They are creating more problems with each passing generation. And they will tell everyone that the Education Minister has the most difficult job on earth and needs to be paid millions. It is the same argument for all the other Ministers.