11/02/2020

Singapore's 15 year olds top in Pisa study

Singapore's young have repeatedly top in international competitions to test their knowledge and understanding of world issues.  This time they even better themselves against Canada in second place, Hong Kong in third, followed by Taiwan and Scotland.

This apparent good news, repeatedly happened many years and decades ago, should be a recognition of the quality of our young. Unfortunately the prowess of our young often did not turn out good when they joined the market. Yes, they would continue to do well in their studies and scoring straight As in their O and A levels and even universities. But when come to seeking a good job, many would be found wanting by foreigners from funny universities with funny degrees.

Many would have to attend interviews by foreigners, called foreign talents by the imbeciles, and found to be poor in everything, no drive, lack of creativity, lack of initiative, even lazy and without skills and knowledge that would fit the jobs. And the interviewers would be the unplaced in Pisa study, ranked probably at the bottom, from unknown and unranked third world countries. 

Even if our best would to be hired, they would likely to work under the so called talents, yes the unplaced talents from third world countries and from funny universities. And they would be booted around and often be asked to leave as they are deemed to be unsatisfactory by these so called foreign talents.

This is the sad state of affairs when the judges of the ability of our young, our talents, are the third world talents that would not feature in Pisa test.

How come, you ask me, I also dunno. No body judge the judges once they are put up there on top of the totem pole and presumed to be gods, and given the power to make judgements against those under the totem poles, the Singaporeans.

For so many decades, our promising and young talents, recognised as the best in Pisa test, mostly turned into duds, unemployed or under employed while those that never featured in Pisa test, came from no where, are now the sought after talents.

What a pathetic state of affairs. How come?

This reminds me of the appraisal system of the govt and political office. They kept changing and modifying the tools without a second thought on the users of the tools. Are the appraisers competent to do the appraising, that they understand the tools and would diligently use the tools to appraise their subordinates objectively? What if the appraisers are the duds and treat the appraisal exercise as a joke for them to write whatever they suka?

No tools can do a good job if the users of the tools did not know how to use the tools or did not want to use the tools correctly or even abused the tools. An appraisal system, an appraisal tool is as good as the users and their competence.

18 comments:

SSO said...

Singapore voters must unite and seriously decide once and for all to have a regime change. The present too good and too smart gang of governing body are too good for Singaporeans. What Singapore really needs is not a highly elite class of leaders but a highly caring group of mediocre leaders.

SSO said...

Another Maid Acquitted Of All Charges By High Court

SINGAPORE - The High Court has acquitted a Filipino domestic worker who was jailed 12 months by a district judge for stealing her then 89-year-old employer's ATM cards and withdrawing a total of $8,000 from his bank accounts.

Ms Portela Vilma Jimenez, now 50, was found guilty of 10 charges of theft by District Judge Jasvender Kaur earlier this year, for stealing two ATM cards belonging to Mr Yong Choon Hiong and making eight unauthorised withdrawals of $1,000 each from his bank accounts.

The withdrawals, which were captured on CCTV footage, were made on six occasions between Jan 13, 2017 and Feb 8, 2017. Seven transactions involved Mr Yong's United Overseas Bank ATM card, and one was made with his POSB ATM card.

Both the prosecution and the defence did not dispute that the withdrawals were made.

But Deputy Public Prosecutor Sia Jiazheng said Ms Jimenez had done so without Mr Yong's knowledge after stealing the ATM cards.

Her lawyers, Suang Wijaya and Syazana Yahya, said she was allowed to make the withdrawals in exchange for sexual favours she gave to her elderly employer.

High Court Judge Chua Lee Ming, who heard the appeal and overturned the conviction, has not issued a written judgment.

But Ms Jimenez's lawyers said Justice Chua did not agree that the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr Yong did not hand the ATM cards to her.

Ms Jimenez, who had worked in Singapore and Kuwait for 20 years, was working for Mr Yong and his wife from December 2015 until April 2017.

As Mr Yong's wife suffers from dementia and was wheelchair-bound, Ms Jimenez had access to the couple's room so she could take care of the elderly woman at night.

The DPP said this was how she was able to remove Mr Yong's ATM card from his wallet, which he would leave in a drawer at night.

The DPP also said Ms Jimenez would have known Mr Yong's personal identification number, which was the same for both cards, as she often went grocery shopping with the elderly couple and would have seen him punching in the numbers when he made payments.

Mr Yong had said he first discovered the unauthorised withdrawals from his account when he received his January 2017 bank statements in February that year.

He said he had gone to UOB in early February to ask the bank about the matter and filed complaints on Feb 21 during a visit to open a joint account with his son.

He made a police report the next day, as he was told that he would not be able to view the CCTV footage without one.

However, Mr Wijaya and Ms Syazana disputed Mr Yong's version of events. They said he had passed his ATM card and written his PIN number on a piece of paper for Ms Jimenez, so that she could withdraw money in exchange for sexual favours.

They contended that Mr Yong had agreed to pay her $500 each time she allowed him to touch her breasts and crotch, and that she was paid on four occasions for this.

Read more from the Straits Times.

Anonymous said...

The foreigners are hungry and street wise, meaning eager and will cheat to get what they want.

Singaporeans are not hungry and did not need to cheat and think others would also not cheat. Then the silly leeders think Singaporeans are stupid and cheating foreigners are clever.

imho said...

All gov try to dumb down their people cos they want a working class that they can control.

Anonymous said...

Pisa is juz only one aspect during the hiring or appraisal or any jobs functions..there r also many other factors as well..such as leadership, emotional intelligence,resilience, skills, knowledge, marketing skills, ability to take challenges or hardship, wisdoms etc..
Probably Sinkieland edu systems cud become a tool tat employers tend to use it to filter when foreigners r on their lists.

Anonymous said...

To date,
there is none outstanding in academic, sport, art and any other field from Sg. This is to be expected albeit it does not mean it must be so due to the Sizes of the City and its Population.
Anyway, Sg is very much like a tiny well, maybe even just a coconut just good for hermit crab.
Sg is Number One in many ways by itself. Number One in 'kiasu, kiasi', as well as Number One in Greed and Boast. This is just the Nature of being Sinkies.


Anonymous said...

Below is one of the outstanding lecturer in NUS from a degree mill according to Kenneth Jeyaretnam...but got sacked.


I am concerned more here with how Jeremy Fernando was hired in the first place and how he was allowed to continue working for ten years. Certainly one would not expect him to be one of the faculty at a university with such a high ranking, albeit from one highly questionable index. His biography shows he got his PhD from the European Graduate School (EGS) which is based in Switzerland and Malta. Anyone can apparently be accepted to do a PhD or Masters provided they pay the fees and most of it is distance learning. EGS is not recognised by the Swiss University Conference and is regarded as a degree mill in the US. It is not ranked by QS, THE or ARWU. Perhaps its attractions to NUS stem from its association with academics like Slavoj Zizek, who has refined the old Communist criticisms of democracy as providing too much freedom in order to praise totalitarian state capitalist regimes like Singapore and China. I wrote about Zizek in “How Lee Kuan Yew and Hitler Both Love Authoritarian Capitalism”

EGS certainly seems to be a home for intellectual pseuds and frauds and Jeremy Fernando seems to have mastered the craft of using too many long and convoluted words and phrases to say nothing, or rather to deny that anything has meaning or indeed that there is any reality....

The Jeremy Fernando affair suggests that the extremely high ratings assigned to NUS (and undoubtedly NTU as well), putting it above institutions like Princeton and Yale, do not seem to be supported by the quality of the academic faculty or the rigour of the teaching. More worrying, Fernando seems to have been laughing at the university and using the authority conferred on him as a Fellow to engage in possible This is like many of the other high rankings for which the PAP Government claims credit with the help of venal or gullible foreigners. The worst confidence trick is the one perpetrated on Singaporean students who have overpaid for worthless courses, at least in the arts. They should demand their money back. And Tommy Koh, an old family friend, should be put out to pasture.

Kenneth Jeyaretnam

1984 George Orwell said...

What is the use of being book smart but not street wise? The education system in Sin City for the last 54 years has been one of dead learning by remembering things by heart in fixed formats such as the ten-year series.

In fact it is not an education system but a training system to make students become obedient citizens and team-workers (read followers) instead of original, creative and dare-to-be-different leaders.

1984 George Orwell said...

Just take a close and detached look at all the ministers and top civil servants. How many of them dare to tell their Boss off when things are not right? In fact, it looks likd all are good at singing the same song and whistling the same tune. Right or wrong?

SSO said...

Trump, true to his colour, is lying all the way to win votes. He will do anything in order to get re-elected for a second term.

I think the tide in the US has already turned against him. Tomorrow is the voting day. Let's see what will happen.

Even though, it does not matter to China whether Trump or Biden is elected, it does matter to the whole world that Trump gets kicked out and join ex-President Peanut Carter as a one-term president.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

It should be true to American colours, they are all liars. Trump, Pompeo, Esper and everyone of them is a liar, But they went around telling the world not to trust China when they should not be trusted.

With the media showing the world the true colours of the Americans, why should the people of the world trust them?

Anonymous said...

Singapore students from Primary School to University and through their PHD courses always do very well. However when it comes to thinking out of the box and being creative, the Singaporeans Student will get nowhere. Singaporean Students are good at rote learning and regurgitating by memorising the theories and books. In short a top A***** Singaporean Student will not be comparable to a C----- Student from India. Sorry to say this, if would prefer to employ the latter, more productive, cheaper, less troublesome and above all no NS call-ups.

Anonymous said...

Too much pay has caused the incompetence, which was caused by complacency, which was caused by contempt, which was caused by arrogance, which was caused by the millionaire status, which was caused by the Parliament legalised unconscionable obscene salary plus the annual puppet-string bonuses. This is the lasting legacy of LKY.

Anonymous said...

Sin has the Most Smartest Fools that are only interested in name-sake.
Vainpots.

Anonymous said...

Alamak the old man did not know the market rate. 500 to touch a 50 years old? It cost 100 to touch young China Mei Mei and more services lar

Anonymous said...

Rb. I also really don't know what to say. Have kids gone through exactly what u wrote in interview. Very difficult to get passed the funny degree holders. Look like local uni degree is like waste paper. Lucky kids got the degree without paying due to scholarship so at least did not waste good money.

Anonymous said...

Foreign Talents are mean, lean and hungry. Singaporeans are only book smart, not able to think out of the box, not brave enough to take chances, obedient and kiasi, quite lazy and very smart at taichi, and above all that they are traditionally very honest and stupid. All these Singaporean qualities are the result of the PAP training for the past 50 years. This situation will not change, Singapore will always fdorever be dependent on the Foreign Talents from overseas.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

When Singaporeans submit their resume for a job, they could only put in the truth or else they could be easily found out.

For foreigners, they could put in anything they fancied, including fake degrees and fake job experiences. No one is able to find out as many came from little villages and unknown and unheard of schools and universities unless they submit infamous degree mill universities.

And our establishments just took these shits as the truth, did not bother to check or unable to check. So every donkey becomes very happy with all the great qualifications they found in the candidates.

Even tertiary donkeys are also duped very frequently, impressed and awed by what they saw on papers and dared not ask questions to verify.

If tertiary donkeys also scared to ask and to check, who else would dare to do so?