Education, solving one problem but creating more problems

'I said that the underlying problem is that the education system aims to pick the top students for the top secondary school and later for scholarships to prestigious overseas universities.

If the reward is set at a high level, parents will continue to do the best that they can to make sure that their children become top students. The children from wealthy families will continue to get the advantage. Those from poorer families will be disadvantaged.

To get rid of this competition, we have to stop identifying the top students. We should only look for students who passed and those who failed. In each cohort, about 90% should pass in each year.'

The above quotes are from Tan Kin Lian in his article posted in TRE offering his solution to what he saw as Ong Ye Kung's inability to solve any problem with his new changes. According to Tan Kin Lian, the problem with Singapore's education is the focus to pick top students to be offered scholarships to the best universities in the world. I differ. Anyway this is what Tan Kin Lian wanted to avoid. So, Ong Ye Kung's new solution did not do away with identifying and selecting the best students.

Tan Kin Lian's solution, make schools produced students with pass or fail grades, get rid of competition. If this is introduced, parents and students do not need to compete with each other and would lead to less stress and maybe everyone passed. I think all of you would have a lot to say about Tan Kin Lian's proposal to solve the education angst of Singapore parents and students.

I just want to point out one fake reality.  Many countries are churning out perfect score students just for their students to look better and can compete better with other countries' students. Also many half baked students and half baked universities are getting first class grades by hook or by crook, fake or real never mind, especially when they come to Singapore. Singapore would accept anything as real on printed paper as they have no means or intelligence to check their validity. Singapore has degraded to the point that they did not even bother about having a degree to qualify for a job as long as the fake can do the job.

So how are our students with only pass grades going to compete with the real and the fakes with A grades? I am sure Tan Kin Lian did not consider this yet. We already have millions of fakes descending here and taking away good jobs from our Singaporeans. The situation can only get worse if our students merely have a pass grade or average grades from the schools, polys or unis. But this may not be a problem as the most desirable jobs for Singaporeans today are hawkers, Grab drivers and part time jobs, all does not require a degree.

What do you think?