PSLE - Another change in grading system

 

 Another big exercise involving a lot of expertise from the education industry has just been completed. This musical chair or merry go round exercise has been going on for years and it seems that it would never be satisfactory as far as the parents are concerned.  The results only helped to meet some of the needs and expectations of the parents but would never be enough as the demands would keep on changing as the moods and expectations of clever and rich parents keep changing.

By now the education ministry and ministers and experts must have known what the parents really want. If they are still guessing or not wanting to face the truth, or knowing the truth but trying to meet the parents half way or a quarter way but still wanting to maintain certain educational objectives and standards, then the cycle will go on and on and every new minister would have his hands full when new sets of parents would have new demands and new axe to grind.

What the parents really want are very simple. Less stress ie less work, less study, and good results and easy to get into branded schools. Actually all three demands are very easy to meet. Less work and less study can be QED.  Just tell the teachers to go slow and teach less and just pretend that the children will then learn more. As for good results for all students, this is even easier. Grades should just be good and excellent and all students would be marked Merit or Excellent. Children will be happy, parents would be happier.

The next big demand is good schools. This is also easily done by a little restructuring and renaming of schools. Pick the best 10 schools that are most desirable by the parents and children. All the schools should be renamed under these 10 schools.  As an example, there can be 50 Raffles Institutions and 50 Hwa Chong Institutions to choose from. Raffles Institution, Bishan, Raffles Institution, Radin Mas, Raffles Institution, Tanglin, Raffles Institution, Ang Mo Kio, Raffles Institution Bedok etc etc The same would apply to Hwa Chong Institution and the other top 8 branded schools.

Now, would that make all the parents and children happy?  Oh, school placement would be very much easier. Can still give preference to citizens and location of homes and the top 6 choices in order of preference.

 Now what is so difficult about this? It took me 5 minutes to solve all the angst of parents. There will be no more stress for parents and students.  No more needs for expensive tuition and spending so much time studying. Go to school and play and enjoy. Many great countries are producing great talents by just giving their students distinctions in all subjects even if they failed. This is only a piece of paper.  What is important in life is whether the student eventually can work or can bluff their way through in life.

No need to sweat the small stuff. No need to put so much pressure on the Education Minister and the teachers and principles.  Singapore will be a very happy place to bring up children and with good grades in good schools without having to study and mug.

I rest my case. It is very hard work to formulate such a big change in the education grading system to please everyone.

Covid19 - India lockdown by the rest of the world

 India at its best in a speech by Modi reproduced by Arundhati Roy in theguardian.com.

“Friends, I have brought the message of confidence, positivity and hope from 1.3 billion Indians amid these times of apprehension … It was predicted that India would be the most affected country from corona all over the world. It was said that there would be a tsunami of corona infections in India, somebody said 700-800 million Indians would get infected while others said 2 million Indians would die.”

“Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.”

Modi the magician takes a bow for saving humanity by containing the coronavirus effectively. Now that it turns out that he has not contained it, can we complain about being viewed as though we are radioactive? That other countries’ borders are being closed to us and flights are being cancelled? That we’re being sealed in with our virus and our prime minister, along with all the sickness, the anti-science, the hatred and the idiocy that he, his party and its brand of politics represent?

This was India at its best. The speech was given at a time when the USA and Europe were plunged into darkness by the virus. India could win a war by just talking. In the above speech Modi must have mesmerised the Americans and the whole world about the prowess of the Indians in handling the Covid19 crisis, in the same way the Indians have impressed the Americans and Europeans in how to run their businesses and taken many of them over to be run by the Indians.

Now Modi must be crying for speaking out loud too early. The Indians are now very angry for his incompetence and mismanagement of the Covid19 pandemic. The world is now watching how India is going to dig its way out of this tragedy. No amount of talking would the Covid19 virus go away.  Only science and hardwork to contain the virus could help India.  Smooth talking would just get India so far.  But when luck runs out, when the truth needs to surface, the truth can be very ugly and painful.

India is under lockdown, the whole of India, not by India, but by the rest of the world. The rest of the world has no choice, no matter how sympathetic they are to India's plight. They will all chip in to help India. But locking down India is a must. Draconian, what is the alternative?

As Arundhati Roy puts it, 'We are witnessing a crime against humanity'. It is a catastrophe. You can lie, brag and cheat all the time, but you cannot lie, brag and cheat and get away with it all the time.

'This one was predicted, although its virulence has taken even scientists and virologists by surprise. So where is the Covid-specific infrastructure and the “people’s movement” against the virus that Modi boasted about in his speech? Hospital beds are unavailable. Doctors and medical staff are at breaking point. Friends call with stories about wards with no staff and more dead patients than live ones. People are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes. Crematoriums in Delhi have run out of firewood. The forest department has had to give special permission for the felling of city trees. Desperate people are using whatever kindling they can find. Parks and car parks are being turned into cremation grounds. It’s as if there’s an invisible UFO parked in our skies, sucking the air out of our lungs. An air raid of a kind we’ve never known.'

Covid19 - The West monopolising and cornering the vaccine market at the expense of saving lives

Photo credit Global Times

LONDON: British lawmakers on Monday (Apr 26) called on the government to publish all communications with pharmaceutical companies to understand if private lobbying influenced its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines.

The United States and a handful of other big countries, including the United Kingdom, have blocked negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) involving a proposal spearheaded by India and South Africa that now has the support of 100 WTO members.

The proposal would temporarily waive the intellectual property (IP) rights of pharmaceutical companies to allow developing countries to produce vaccines.

The waiver is opposed by the US Chamber of Commerce and big pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

A cross-party group of UK lawmakers has signed a statement calling for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ministers, and senior civil servants to publish all email, text, and WhatsApp messages exchanged with pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists.

Patient advocacy and vaccine equity organisations have also signed the statement, including Global Justice Now, Just Treatment, StopAIDS, Frontline AIDS, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines UK, Students for Global Health, and Nurses United UK.

"The UK's opposition to an intellectual property waiver on COVID-19 vaccines is utterly indefensible," said Heidi Chow, senior policy and campaigns manager at Global Justice Now, which organised the joint statement.  Reuters

From the above Reuters' article it is clear what are the motive of the Americans and their pharmaceutical companies.  It is purely profits and the protection of American lives. They are not allowing other companies the right to produce the vaccines. They are not allowing other countries to use Russian and Chinese vaccines.

In the meantime, while they are unable to produce enough for themselves, the rest of the world shall have to wait for their vaccines and if they can't wait, they shall die. They cannot use Russian and Chinese vaccines to save themselves. 

When the Americans have finally vaccinated their own people and the Brits, only then would they offer their vaccines to the rest of the world at a price much more expensive than those of the Russians and the Chinese, to make a pile at the expense of the lives of the people of the world.

This is the American and British way of saving the world, to line their own pockets first.

The rest of the world are so lucky that Russian and Chinese vaccines, better and safer vaccines, are available to them. But this is not all.  The evilness was exposed by a former Pfixer chief scientist, Mike Yeadon. According to Yeadon, the Pfizer vaccine is part of a process of eliminating the vast majority of human beings iving today. ...the first vaccine injection o, a total of 0.8% will die withing 2 weeks...those that survived will live for an average of 2 years. This ability to live will be shortened by further vacccine injections.  According to Yeadon, the final goal of the vaccine is to lead to massive population reduction. 

Some are critical of Yeadon's view and disagree with him. Whatever, no one really knows what is the truth and what is really going on. Just take note of the alternative views.

For further info of what Mike Yeadon said, go to https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/exclusive-former-pfizer-vp-your-government-is-lying-to-you-in-a-way-that-could-lead-to-your-death

And this is Bill Gate's view on protection of IP for vaccines and saying it is ok to wait for 10 years for poorer countries to get vaccinated.  Smart poorer countries can avoid being blackmailed by the West and opt for cheaper Russian and Chinese vaccines that are available immediately.

The US and Its Western allies new Gun Boat Policy against China will be their nemesis and end of mankind.

    This article is written as an adjunct to Chua Chin Leng's article today, "UK led naval strike force to enter within striking distance of China - An act of war."

 The West headed by the US is in decline and is  desperately trying to reactivate their imperialism and colonialism to force all third world countries under its control again to resurrect the 500 years curse which they had previously imposed on all non-white countries.  By far they have destroyed many countries in the Middle East, Africa and South America and imposed new western economic and financial colonialism  on all the countries therein. Now they are wishfully trying to use the Gunboat Policy on China again. Their gunboats during the Opium Wars 1830s to 1860s and in the Boxer Rebellion 1900 managed to cause great national disaster to China and the Chinese people and caused China to lay prostrate for over a century unable to fight back until the rise of the Chinese Communist Party headed by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and his  heroic compatriotrs who managed to defeat the British, American and Japanese imperialism during the Second World War in 1937 to 1945.

Now the desperate West headedby the US is driving the war clouds over China again. However, today's People's Republic of China is not to be trivialised  as they who try to do so are courting  their own downfall and destruction.

There is a similar repeat of their past aggressions against China. America and many  of these European countries  are combining their arm forces to provoke China. Not single day, week or month past without their provocations. Now they are testing China's grit and patience to the limit with their military naval and air force encroaching very close to China's shores and airspace. China should not treat these provocations lightly as it would embolden them to interprete wrongly as China's cowardice and cause them to make sudden surprise attacks on China.

China must take counter actions immediately and give the US and its Western European allies their own medicine. China should not be afraid to arm Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico with nuclear weapons. China should station nuclear submarines by the coast of the Atlantic and Pacific ocean of America, in the Atlantic Ocean close to western Europe, in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and in the North Sea of England and not be afraid to let them know what China is doing. China should reserve the right to blockade the British and the European warships in the Indian Ocean and in the Straits of Malacca. China's nuclear missiles in nearby Pakistan or Iran should be directed and aimed at US military base in Diego Garcia.  It is definitely going to be an all out nuclear war. China should not hold any delusion of the US and its allies diabolical intentions against China and stop thinking that a peace can be negotiated with the US and the West. The United States and its white European allies are toxic and dangerous and to think that they can be trusted is to delude yourself that  you can  hug a tiger or a lion safely without consequence.

Southernglory1

Wednesday, 28th April, 2021

                                                                                                      

UK led naval strike force to enter within striking distance of China - An act of war

'The strike group will be led by the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, marking its maiden deployment. The ship, one of the UK's two aircraft carriers, is the largest warship the UK has ever sent to sea.

Joining the carrier will be two destroyers, two anti-submarine frigates, a submarine and two auxiliary supply ships, a ministry statement said.

A United States Navy guided-missile destroyer will sail with the group as well as a frigate from the Netherlands that will be tasked with air defense, the ministry said.'  CNN

A total of 10 warships, including aircraft carrier, submarines and nuclear weapons, will be heading to China, sailing through the South China Sea and East China Sea.  As the group has appropriately called itself, a 'strike group', it is an offensive military force capable of inflicting very heavy damage to China should it turn hostile once it comes withing firing range of its missiles and attack aircraft.

The concentration of such a formidable offensive force at the doorstep of China or any country without an invitation is unwelcome, is a hostile act. Any country facing such a show of force cannot take it lightly and allow the strike force free passage through its waters to within striking range of its weapons. China must declare this as a hostile act,an act of war, and take serious steps to prevent it from getting close enough to launch a strike at China mainland, just like the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. An attack by such a strike group at near distance would be very difficult to defend and would exact very serious damage to China in lives and properties. No country can afford to suffer a first strike from such a military force, not even China at close quarters.

China cannot simply protest and allow the strike group to get too near for its own security. China must draw a red line and crossing it would be an act of war. This is no simple freedom of navigation exercise. these are heavily armed warships ready to attack. It is not just a show of force. It is too dangerous for any country not to do anything. The risk is unacceptable. It is like the Russians placing missiles in Cuba that risked a war with the USA in the 60s.

Before China puts itself into harms way by not doing anything and allow the strike force to get too near for comfort, a hard decision must be made.  The evil Brits are not up to any good intention. Like the Chinese saying, 来者不善, China must meet the Brits half way, not allowing such a massive military force near its mainland. A confrontation is called for and it is time China stand up to these military brutes and tell them to get lost or face the consequences of war.

China has no option. China has to make a stand. This is a small town bully foolishly thinking that it is big enough to threaten and bully China. It is time for China to take out the cane and whip them silly. A red zone must be drawn around China and crossing it would mean China would take offensive actions to sink the warships. Period. 

This message must be made known to the world and give notice to the silly Brits that this is not a game. This is violation of Chinese territory, a hostile act and would be challenged and stopped.