- Joined
- Jul 24, 2008
- Messages
- 33,627
- Points
- 0
[h=2]Elitism has crept into our education system[/h]
July 24th, 2012 |
Author: Contributions
Elitism has crept into just about every aspect of our education system.
Our primary and secondary school suffers from class discrimination. Students who are from poor families have to make do with tuition offered by self-help organisations like CDAC, Mendaki, Sinda and so on. Those, who can afford, will send their children to expensive tuition centers or engage experienced tutors for one-to-one coaching.
My colleague criticized one such tuition center for insisting that her niece/nephew take a written exam before enrolling. Imagine a child who needs tuition failing to enroll into a well-known tuition center not because their parents cannot afford it but because the child is just not good enough (and slow down the rest). What irony!?
I have been a volunteer Maths tutor in a self-help organisation for years. I have personally felt the standards of our school Maths teachers dropping over the years. The turnover rate of teachers is just too high for them to accumulate enough experience to be good in what they do i.e. teaching. This is a known problem that MOE is still grabbling with. It took me more than a decade of volunteering before I felt confident in my skills as a tutor just in Secondary-level Maths alone.
=> So what have the $$$million Education ministers been doing? Teaching the kids pro-FAP propaganda? Or simply going through motion and SLEEPING?
Once, one of my ex-student called me to complain a method I taught him was being taught by his school teacher differently. I explained to him as long as the answer is correct, a slight variation is alright. Imagine my surprise when he told me his teacher used the same method but the answer was wrong!? Furthermore, this student is attending an independent school and doing a six-year IB course. Recently, another student showed me a question in his Sec 3 mid-year exam. The question asked to prove a statement. I was puzzled by the question as there was an instance where the proof fails. I contacted another highly qualified friend to verify and he agreed with me. After informing the student to clarify with his school teacher, the dumbfounded answer I got was, “Teacher says it is the standard answer.”
I personally believe and I think many parents will agree, Singapore’s pedigree standard in education over the past several decades had been prop up by a vast private tuition industry (that is worth >$1 billion annually and still growing). And it is a result of our government consistently under-spending on public education as it had on public health. Singaporeans are left to fend for themselves by paying for their own private tuition, using their CPF monies for their children’s education and their own health insurance. Unfortunately, in such a society, the class divide between the haves and have-not will only widen.
.
Daemonic
* Comment first appeared in: Experts: Govt should run pre-school education and make it free.
Comprain some more and I will give out more free scholarships to my FT pets! *chey*
Elitism has crept into just about every aspect of our education system.
Our primary and secondary school suffers from class discrimination. Students who are from poor families have to make do with tuition offered by self-help organisations like CDAC, Mendaki, Sinda and so on. Those, who can afford, will send their children to expensive tuition centers or engage experienced tutors for one-to-one coaching.
My colleague criticized one such tuition center for insisting that her niece/nephew take a written exam before enrolling. Imagine a child who needs tuition failing to enroll into a well-known tuition center not because their parents cannot afford it but because the child is just not good enough (and slow down the rest). What irony!?
I have been a volunteer Maths tutor in a self-help organisation for years. I have personally felt the standards of our school Maths teachers dropping over the years. The turnover rate of teachers is just too high for them to accumulate enough experience to be good in what they do i.e. teaching. This is a known problem that MOE is still grabbling with. It took me more than a decade of volunteering before I felt confident in my skills as a tutor just in Secondary-level Maths alone.
=> So what have the $$$million Education ministers been doing? Teaching the kids pro-FAP propaganda? Or simply going through motion and SLEEPING?
Once, one of my ex-student called me to complain a method I taught him was being taught by his school teacher differently. I explained to him as long as the answer is correct, a slight variation is alright. Imagine my surprise when he told me his teacher used the same method but the answer was wrong!? Furthermore, this student is attending an independent school and doing a six-year IB course. Recently, another student showed me a question in his Sec 3 mid-year exam. The question asked to prove a statement. I was puzzled by the question as there was an instance where the proof fails. I contacted another highly qualified friend to verify and he agreed with me. After informing the student to clarify with his school teacher, the dumbfounded answer I got was, “Teacher says it is the standard answer.”
I personally believe and I think many parents will agree, Singapore’s pedigree standard in education over the past several decades had been prop up by a vast private tuition industry (that is worth >$1 billion annually and still growing). And it is a result of our government consistently under-spending on public education as it had on public health. Singaporeans are left to fend for themselves by paying for their own private tuition, using their CPF monies for their children’s education and their own health insurance. Unfortunately, in such a society, the class divide between the haves and have-not will only widen.
.
Daemonic
* Comment first appeared in: Experts: Govt should run pre-school education and make it free.
Comprain some more and I will give out more free scholarships to my FT pets! *chey*
