76 replies to this topic

[Yasis]

As a chinese, I feel that Singapore's education system has been a failure on teaching chinese language and values.

This teaching of both english and chinese from primary to secondary levels has been a disaster and chinese youths in Singapore these days can't even express themselves in proper chinese or english.

This mixing of english and chinese in the education system has produced a whole generation of singaporeans speaking "rojak"--Singlish.

I don't think that the government will change their policies that easily as teaching english in public schools is part of their social policy of mixing malays, chinese and other ethnic groups together.

[Centaur]

I am in the teaching profession and could say this much and these are my observations. This is probably a result of mass production teaching of teachers and students. :

Children's difficulties in studies:
- Too many forced feeding of facts and figures; hardly time for the child to digest and understand truly facts and figures.
- Too many spoon feeding just to hope to excel in exams, they forget to cultivate the person or teach the child the art of answering questions.
- Too much pressure to excel, they hurt the child only.
- Too little attention from teachers and parents.

Parents' difficulties:
- Not sufficient time to supervise children's education and recreation time; a societial problem because, parents need to go out to work leaving children in the care of grandparents, maids or even childcare centres.
- Too much pressure to bring home the bacon, causing a possible generation gap between parents and children.
- Too afraid to lose - pressuring children to do well without knowing if child could handle the pressure - trying to keep up with the Jones.
- Giving excessive allowance as an enticement to children without checking out what is truly needed.

Teachers' difficulties
- Too much administrative duties, CCA duties, courses and other, no time to truly rest.
- Too much pressure to ensure school's ranking, need to meet school's and Ministries expectations.
- Insufficient training in art of teaching. Some teachers are just too pedantic in their ways.
- Too high Teachers and student ratio - 1: 30 is still too many!

The above are only the little tip of the iceberg of the problem. I am sure there are more from others.

I reckon, it would be easy to gripe about it. Ultimately we are still saddled with half educated children. What can we do to rectify the problem? I believe, it is in our hands. We might not be able to change it in this generation. I still believe and hope we could help to change the next. We need to work together.

[Moon]

As a chinese, I feel that Singapore's education system has been a failure on teaching chinese language and values.

This teaching of both english and chinese from primary to secondary levels has been a disaster and chinese youths in Singapore these days can't even express themselves in proper chinese or english.

This mixing of english and chinese in the education system has produced a whole generation of singaporeans speaking "rojak"--Singlish.

I don't think that the government will change their policies that easily as teaching english in public schools is part of their social policy of mixing malays, chinese and other ethnic groups together.

Depending how we look at it.

If we compare our English with the super big powerful countries like USA, Europe; and Chinese with China, then yes, i agree that our language standards compared to these countries are just average.

At least we can still speak and understand at least three languages - English, Mandarin and a dialect. Most people from their own country can only speak their own native language.

Nevertheless, I too agree that Singlish should be OUT. I am not proud of this and I simply cannot stand it when some local actors act cute and funny by speaking Singlish - the younger generation will be influenced and I hope the local media production will stop producing such shows and start speaking "normal" English.

[snowybeagle]

I am in the teaching profession and could say this much and these are my observations.

Are you a teacher with Ministry of Education? Which level do you teach?
My wife's a teacher too. Want to hear gripes of a teacher's husband?

It was only after having our own children that she was finally able to force away from being overly involved in her profession.

But to her, it is still a calling ...

[Centaur]

Are you a teacher with Ministry of Education? Which level do you teach?
My wife's a teacher too. Want to hear gripes of a teacher's husband?

It was only after having our own children that she was finally able to force away from being overly involved in her profession.

But to her, it is still a calling ...

No, I work with Special needs children, not part of the MOE, but still very much in the educational system.

[Centaur]

Are you a teacher with Ministry of Education? Which level do you teach?
My wife's a teacher too. Want to hear gripes of a teacher's husband?

I certainly would and I could understand. I dont have a life partner yet, but I could imagine the grouse he would have. Maybe I could learn from you to avoid certain pitfalls?

[Moon]

I am in the teaching profession and could say this much and these are my observations. This is probably a result of mass production teaching of teachers and students. :

Children's difficulties in studies:
- Too many forced feeding of facts and figures; hardly time for the child to digest and understand truly facts and figures. True - but also could be due to tight deadlines for submission of projects and the lack of time to do research work, taking into consideration their CCAs and supplementary classes. In addition, the secondary students are doing something like 9 to 11 subjects at one go. The poor students simply have no time to do their own research work. But of course this is not a good excuse. They can find time if they want to.

- Too many spoon feeding just to hope to excel in exams, they forget to cultivate the person or teach the child the art of answering questions. True my feelings as above.

- Too much pressure to excel, they hurt the child only. Thanks to the afraid-to-lose parents, the pressure could be pass on from their parents - whether direc or indirectly..

- Too little attention from teachers and parents. Too big class size. Some parents are dedicated but helpless because not all teenages nowadays (usually the boys) like to communicate and share their feelings with their parents. I have friends and colleagues who share the same sentiments in this issue. We want to get close and communicate but the children prefer to spend their free time catching up with other things other than their parents.

Parents' difficulties:
- Not sufficient time to supervise children's education and recreation time; a societial problem because, parents need to go out to work leaving children in the care of grandparents, maids or even childcare centres. True. Yet unavoidable because lets face it, nothing is free except the air we breathe in. The only solution is to make it a point to spend quality time with their children in the evenings after work, no matter how much the children dont like it.

- Too much pressure to bring home the bacon, causing a possible generation gap between parents and children. Despite inevitable to work, parents should still learn to relax and constantly make efforts to communicate with their children.

- Too afraid to lose - pressuring children to do well without knowing if child could handle the pressure - trying to keep up with the Jones. I hate to use Singlish but here is one well-known "Kia-su" to fit in the description.

- Giving excessive allowance as an enticement to children without checking out what is truly needed.
True. Most of these children are from well to do families with parents who are guilty they never spend enough time with their children so giving excessive allowance as a form of making-up to them, or simply give more for meals allowance because nobody does the cooking at home.

Teachers' difficulties
- Too much administrative duties, CCA duties, courses and other, no time to truly rest.
- Too much pressure to ensure school's ranking, need to meet school's and Ministries expectations.
- Insufficient training in art of teaching. Some teachers are just too pedantic in their ways.
- Too high Teachers and student ratio - 1: 30 is still too many!

Teachers are overloaded with work and it is obviously showing on their faces and behaviour. A class size of 15 would be reasonable.

The above are only the little tip of the iceberg of the problem. I am sure there are more from others.

I reckon, it would be easy to gripe about it. Ultimately we are still saddled with half educated children. What can we do to rectify the problem? I believe, it is in our hands. We might not be able to change it in this generation. I still believe and hope we could help to change the next. We need to work together.

Thanks Centuar for the wonderful observation. As a parent I am also concern too of the current education system. I have inserted (in blue) a little of my thoughts and observations too.

[snowybeagle]

Here in America,teacher to student ratio is one to 32 .

I was informed that in the US, teachers have teacher-assistants to do numerous tasks in support of the teachers' work in the classes.

[Edgar Liao]

hey thanks a lot, even though i have already turned to that source and found some oral interview tapes to do with Sir Song haha

[snowybeagle]

I certainly would and I could understand. I dont have a life partner yet, but I could imagine the grouse he would have. Maybe I could learn from you to avoid certain pitfalls?

Well, it'll really depend on individuals and circumstances.

In her previous school, parents from middle/upper income background spoil their kids rotten, and her colleagues, including the 2 principals there during her term, were people one wouldn't want to work with.

I still recall her colleagues in the library department finding excuses not to do their part.
Wifey ended up having to rope in me and another friend to assist her in inventory taking and packing books for a move to a new school compound.
When a couple of colleagues from the library department saw she got additional help, instead of feeling embarassed or ashamed, they told her since she got us, they won't be needed and promptly disappeared!

When parents complained to MOE, instead of finding out the facts and defending innocent teachers, the principals blamed the teachers for parents complaining.

Second principal also refused to grant permission for annual leave until the last week before school holidays, making it quite impossible for us to plan for our holidays in advance. But he did grant the leave to senior teachers who got clout.

I also oft waited in school for hours sometimes for their meetings to end after the scheduled end time.

In the second school, work colleagues and principal are great. Problem is families of students as a rule rather than exceptions are not supportive of their children's education and upbringing - busy working parents or worse, non-working idling parents or behind bars.

She had to do house visit after school which ended at 6:45pm for the afternoon session.
I went with her, and it was only after 9:00pm that we had our dinner.
Meanwhile, from my observations of the families, nothing would change.

My biggest complaint is the government expect teachers to be like Mother Theresa, and expect to pay them like what Mother Theresa earned.

During MOE briefings, senior officials from MOE told teachers they're undertaking a special duty to society and hence should not expect to be paid well for their job. Easy enough for these senior officials to say when they themselves enjoy regular hours, no restriction from taking leave during school term and high pay packets.

Other civil servants can make use of annual leave to stay home longer after their maternity leave ends.
Teachers aren't allowed to do so.

On the other hand, the government make such big deals about having to compensate ministers and senior civil servants to compensate them adequately for doing important jobs.

Basically, they got their policies all wrong when it comes to the education system.
Teachers should not be made to take over the roles of parents.
Parents should be made more accountable for their children.
And important work deserves important renumeration.

As a husband, whatever affects my wife adversely at work tend to get brought into our home.
I see all the idiosynchrasies which would have fatal for superiors in the private sector getting away scot-free.


As confirmed by a friend working in MYCS, teachers have highest rate of casualties among those who need counselling or psychiatric treatment.
But MOE dared not publish the statistics.

[LYY]

The Suzhou debacle in the 1990s is a classic example of how different the mentality of Singaporean Chinese has become from the mainland Chinese despite supposedly using the same language.

In the past before Singapore became independent, the Chinese migrants who became successful towkays (businessmen) did so by seeking to understand and meet the needs of others.

However, the Singapore government now seemed to realise belatedly that the education system in Singapore produced a generation of Singaporean, who even if they could speak Mandarin, lacked common sense of empathy and instead expect others to understand the Singaporeans. And they have no idea why others do not respond to their ideas or why their methodology, tried and tested in Singapore, failed to produce the desired results when implemented in China.

Mr Lee is not a typical Chinese.
Suzhou debacle is just a talesign ... of how his model flops in the PRC.

Dr M is duplicating "Suzhou debacle" ... just looks at your neighboring PORT, AIRPORTS, the concept of ASIA snapshot, Education excellence centre, Medical Tourism, Shopping Paradise etc etc.

Seem to me Mr Lee is concerned too with the type of Chinese in hsi neighboring country who learn to be more empathy and chinese literated.

[urofpersia]

Teachers' difficulties
- Too much administrative duties, CCA duties, courses and other, no time to truly rest.
- Too much pressure to ensure school's ranking, need to meet school's and Ministries expectations.
- Insufficient training in art of teaching. Some teachers are just too pedantic in their ways.
- Too high Teachers and student ratio - 1: 30 is still too many!

The above are only the little tip of the iceberg of the problem. I am sure there are more from others.

I reckon, it would be easy to gripe about it. Ultimately we are still saddled with half educated children. What can we do to rectify the problem? I believe, it is in our hands. We might not be able to change it in this generation. I still believe and hope we could help to change the next. We need to work together.

I quite agree with all your points, did you know this problem is not unique to Singapore? In fact, Teachers on a relative scale range, are the highest paid in S E Asia, they get even higher pay than teachers in public schools in the US.

Note I am in no way trying to make excuses, i actually agree with all the points Snowybeagle makes as well. I just want to highlight the point above you made. Education must always have the development of the individual in mind, not the school's ranking, not how many passes/failures etc. The students should not become another statistic for the school. Can this be achieved hundred percent? A loud no, however it should be the goal and not just lip service and hypocritically the school's motto! It should be quite obvious some higher-ups are more concern about how they can advance or secure their careers than genuinely concerned about welfare and education of the students. Unfortunately, 上梁不正下梁歪 some teachers are just going to be following suit because they see these are what really matters, the numbers, not the students. The school, their careers becomes more important than the individual students who are just numbers at the end of the day. Good teachers become disillusioned.

Sorry for the rant, but education in Singapore is one of my pet peeve. I think the government has recognised part of the problem but they are not doing enough to change things. Saying that things are not better in other countries is little consolation when we see more can be done, but it requires changes higher up in the ladder.

[Centaur]

Sorry for the rant, but education in Singapore is one of my pet peeve. I think the government has recognised part of the problem but they are not doing enough to change things. Saying that things are not better in other countries is little consolation when we see more can be done, but it requires changes higher up in the ladder.

Don't worry, I do understand and I will do what ever it is possible to change from my end. I have moved from being just a teacher to someone developing the programme for our special needs children. I just a couple of heated arguments with the older and more established executives - We look at the child and see what he/she needs - we work on their strength and support their weakness. We give them a set of values and principles to live by. We want them to hold themselves up with pride that inspite of their disabilities, they are no less than anyone from the mainstream schools.

[Centaur]

Well, it'll really depend on individuals and circumstances.

In her previous school, parents from middle/upper income background spoil their kids rotten, and her colleagues, including the 2 principals there during her term, were people one wouldn't want to work with.

I still recall her colleagues in the library department finding excuses not to do their part.
Wifey ended up having to rope in me and another friend to assist her in inventory taking and packing books for a move to a new school compound.
When a couple of colleagues from the library department saw she got additional help, instead of feeling embarassed or ashamed, they told her since she got us, they won't be needed and promptly disappeared!

When parents complained to MOE, instead of finding out the facts and defending innocent teachers, the principals blamed the teachers for parents complaining.

Second principal also refused to grant permission for annual leave until the last week before school holidays, making it quite impossible for us to plan for our holidays in advance. But he did grant the leave to senior teachers who got clout.

I also oft waited in school for hours sometimes for their meetings to end after the scheduled end time.

In the second school, work colleagues and principal are great. Problem is families of students as a rule rather than exceptions are not supportive of their children's education and upbringing - busy working parents or worse, non-working idling parents or behind bars.

She had to do house visit after school which ended at 6:45pm for the afternoon session.
I went with her, and it was only after 9:00pm that we had our dinner.
Meanwhile, from my observations of the families, nothing would change.

My biggest complaint is the government expect teachers to be like Mother Theresa, and expect to pay them like what Mother Theresa earned.

During MOE briefings, senior officials from MOE told teachers they're undertaking a special duty to society and hence should not expect to be paid well for their job. Easy enough for these senior officials to say when they themselves enjoy regular hours, no restriction from taking leave during school term and high pay packets.

Other civil servants can make use of annual leave to stay home longer after their maternity leave ends.
Teachers aren't allowed to do so.

On the other hand, the government make such big deals about having to compensate ministers and senior civil servants to compensate them adequately for doing important jobs.

Basically, they got their policies all wrong when it comes to the education system.
Teachers should not be made to take over the roles of parents.
Parents should be made more accountable for their children.
And important work deserves important renumeration.

As a husband, whatever affects my wife adversely at work tend to get brought into our home.
I see all the idiosynchrasies which would have fatal for superiors in the private sector getting away scot-free.


As confirmed by a friend working in MYCS, teachers have highest rate of casualties among those who need counselling or psychiatric treatment.
But MOE dared not publish the statistics.

I agree with you. I will try to better things on my end. I work with special needs children - I had told the teachers working with me that I don't want to see them after the lesson for the day are over. I want them to go home, rest and have a decent family life.

[Moon]

This is a tough issue, yes I know. Politics are everywhere, in countries, in organizations and even at home among the relatives. The bigger the organization, the more politics there are. So is bureaucracy. Schools are big organizations, if we count in the students too.

Politics in workplace, we call them office politics. In fact I have never come across very few instances people who work for a living who don’t have to deal with at least some form of bureaucracy or office politics. I started working at a very young age due to financial difficulties and initially I was bullied, ignored, outcast, and taken advantage of in terms of work duties. It was tough definitely and I don’t have anyone I can turn to for counseling or support. But as I progress along the way, I became smarter and worked smarter. By this I don’t mean getting others to do my work, but instead I get familiar with my job scope as I don’t like to ask for help if I can help it. And helping our work mates is ok as long as we are appreciated, but not if we are being taken advantage of!

Speaking of the leave system in schools, if I am not wrong, aside the gazette public holidays, teachers also enjoy term leave. This would mean 7 days during the first term in March, almost 30 days in June, another 7 days in September and approximately 40 days in December. In total this would mean about 84 days’ of leave a year, ie counting in the public holidays and weekends too. Yes there are training for teachers during the school holidays too, but this is already considered as luxury compared to others working in non-teaching environment that have approximately between 12 days to 21 days a year. In fact I understand that the long school leave is the main attraction that lures qualified people into joining the teaching profession. It is also a statutory requirement for organizations to provide 2-day per year of Childcare leave to a parent regardless the number of children at home. But I understand that female teachers get 5 days of Childcare leave per year per child. That means for example a mum teacher with 3 kids below seven years of age will get 5 days x 3 kids = 15 days of childcare leave per year compared to us 2 days per year even for 3 kids below age of seven. Wow! On top of 84 days school holidays + 5 days Childcare leave (assuming 1 kid), and in addition all teachers enjoy 11 days of UPA – Urgent Private Affairs leave per year. I lost count of the total leave already. Excuse me, I am not complaining here, just envying.

NO sweat if the HOD put on a black face if one apply leave – it is an entitlement and if the leave is desperately required, then what the hack, just apply, though it is good if could support with some kind of documentation.

By the way my brother is a teacher in profession in one of the primary schools in Singapore. Every year he makes it a point to travel overseas at least once or twice a year with his wife and children, during the school holidays usually in June and December. He has three kids, a primary two girl, a playschool age girl and a two-year old boy. I have also seen him brought home piles of school exercise books and projects done by his students to mark at home. At this point, I feel family understanding and support is very important here, especially for both the working couple. My brother is fortunate to have my mum and his mum-in-law to help take care of the kids whenever needed. These elderly folks play a very important role here, so never chuck them away. 家有一老如有一宝 . Even if they are too old to baby sit the kids, if the working couple could afford it, its good to engage a domestic helper and the elderly could do the supervisory role.

Keep in mind that just like the rest of us in other profession, none of us are exempted from dealing with bureaucracy and politics. Getting frustrated only makes matter worse. We can spend our entire life time complaining about politics and bureaucracy, wishing it would disappear, and fighting all the way. We can struggle and drive ourselves crazy, but in the end, we are still going to deal with the bureaucracy and the nasty people we work with. But I am sure there is a way out. There is bound to be something that can be done, we just have to sort it out and SUMO.

So the lesson is this: Check and find out more about the organization’s policies and staff welfare and benefits before signing a contract with them. Give it some thought and consideration before signing the contract as once the contract is signed, it means that all terms and conditions of the offer of employment are agreed and accepted and it will be too late for regrets except to move on to elsewhere, if the job is causing too much stress and unhappiness.

I wont go further as I am going off-topic.

Cheers!

Edited by Moon, 05 April 2006 - 11:15 PM.