7/28/2008
Sacrificing our child for our own benefit
A Primary One child starts school at 7.20am. Depending on the distance and mode of transportation, the child may have to wake up before 6am to get to school. Now why is there a need for a child at such a tender age to start school at 7.20am?
Oh, the parents need to go to work. So they need to pack the child off to school first, could be on the way to work. Huh? For the convenience of the parents, for the convenience of meeting working hours, we force our little ones to wake up so early in the morning, sleepy eyes, to go to school.
Are we humans or monsters? For all decency, there is no need for young children to start school before 9am. The parents can go and sort out their own problems. Do not sacrifice our children for the sake of the adults.
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7 comments:
Parents who force their kids to wake up between 5am to 5:30am are the biggest monsters for sending their children to so-called branded, elite schools which are far, far away from where they stay.
i can picture these kids who are constantly sleep-deprived, dozing off in class; nodding in agreement to whatever the teacher says.
the intent is good on the parent's part. it is a painful decision. why must the system be structured as such? primary school children can start any time after 9am and be home in the afternoon in those single session schools.
why not say its the break down of the multi-tier family that resulted in the view "Sacrificing our child for our own benefit"
i believe most of us baby boomers grew up in the care of the extended family, there were no maids, school hours dun change, and we dun complaint.
is it the affluent life style that leads to this thought???
think of the good of waking the kid up at 5 am... so that they may sleep early also, to have a good & helthy lifestyle.
yes, early to bed, early to rise. but going to school in darkness needs getting use to.
after our generation, no one can afford to stay home and not working except for the top 20% income bracket. two income family is a matter of life and death. single income and still comfortable is only the reserve of the few privileged.
once the grandparents are not available, maids become a necessity and a troublesome and risky option.
so seems that the support network is insufficient. perhaps our wise leaders need to solve this problem that they have created.
1. better sudsidy for the b4 & after school care... up to secondary level.
2. free transport to & fro from school, afterall they are throwing money away everywhere, why not just improve the livelihood of residents.
3. keep the kids in school from 0730 to 1730 hrs. => keeping them from trouble.... Singapore is rich enough to build more schools, as well as employ more teachers... those SAF deadwood can best be deployed to school, like wise for the civil service deadwood, put them in the school as PE teacher or administrator to run the activities, so that the REAL TEACHERS can teach better.
4. Have free lunch coupons for cildren whose family income is below SGD 6000.00 (in view of the inflation)
5. Have good schools around Singapore, and not in pockets where the more prvileged stays. Just look at the north east, far west & the north (Pasir Ris, Tampinese, Jurong West, Woodlands, Yishun) 30 percent of the population has been left out, there is no branded school in these towns (Which resulted in the 0500 hrs issue)
6. perhaps in this economic downturn, we can all look at ourself when we have more time(jobless) and hopefully change for the better, for ourself and the poor children.
I think such early hours need to change. In the past because of 2 session classes, schools need to start early to accommodate the 2 sessions, but now most are already single session schools, so it really doesn't make sense to start school at 7.30am.
But, of course, there are also parents who have to start work early as well, so getting their kids to school early is neccessary because they cannot afford to wait until their kids leave for school before the go to work.
These parents will seriously object to the time change, but this is not a big problem because they could still send their kid to school early. The only thing is that schools must make sure someone is in school early to watch over the kids.
i think it is a good idea to start later and schools also provide a halfway house for those who have to bring in their children earlier. those who do not need such facilities, can continue to come later and their children spare from having to wake up too early. the reverse also applies for those who need to work late and need to leave the children in schools. the rest can go home as usual.
we need not have a system that punishes every child just to be uniform. why can't we be a little flexible huh?
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