Schools raise cut off points for admission

The PSLE result was so good that top secondary schools have to raise their cut off points for admission. Many PSLE graduates were disappointed after doing so well and thinking that they could get admitted only to be thwarted by the new cut off points. And at the other extreme, 7 schools need not raise their points and did not receive enough students to run their classes. Even if they were to lower their cut off points, it would not make any difference. The MOE is now having a different kind of headache on what to do with these schools. Should they be merged or close down?

The exceptionally good results of our students, and kudos to the schools and the teachers, are not a once off phenomenon. The trend has been consistent for the last 4 decades. The funny thing is that we have lost one whole generation of industry leaders. According to the foreign recruiting agents, not Singaporean recruiting agents, we don’t have talents and the only talents they could find are in the 3^rd World villages. And if you want them to do any placement, they will go scouring the little villages where talents are plentiful, especially in banking and finance and also IT, to give you the best. They just can’t find the talents they need from the local cohorts that were famed for their straight As. I dunno what happened to these bright students when they grow up? Becoming part time employees or doing temp jobs?

And the loss of talents is not confined to just IT, banking and finance. It is across the board. Even top postman job must go to foreigners, top gardeners job, top animal keepers jobs, curators of junks, oops I mean antiques,  etc etc must also go to foreigners. And foreign talents are starting to fill the politicial positions as well. That is how good our education system has become. And not a single Singaporean dares to dispute this fact, that we don’t have local talents for top jobs. Maybe in 30 years time. They have just planted the shoots and waiting for the harvest in 30 years time. Yes, in 30 years time we will have local talents for top jobs. Don’t worry.

For those who just completed their PSLE, in 30 years time they will be about 40 years old, just about right. They will be just in time to be the top talents Singapore is waiting for.

Oh, what about the schools that cannot attract students and facing a bleak future of no students? Not to worry. I have several solutions. One simple one is to go to 3^rd World countries and offer them scholarships to pick up the village best to be our future talents. There is only one problem, or maybe not a problem, only a paradox. These village talents will shine if they continue to stay in their village school system and when they graduated, they will be headhunted to be our foreign talents. But if they are to study here, in our world best education system, would they score straight As like our local students but ended up with no talent and unemployable like our local students?

The village talents must think very hard on which is the better system that will bring out their best. From experience and empirical data, it is better that they stayed in the village school system that will turn them into top grade foreign talents for this city state.  And they can say, cheap and good, a cheap education but with excellent results.

What do you think?