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http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/07/13/education-system-in-singapore/
Education System In Singapore
July 13th, 2011 | Author: Contributions
Whenever there is a problem I prefer to question why are people behaving in a certain way rather than simply admonishing them for their bad or incorrect behaviour.
Recently, our learned LKY gave the world the good advice that China should encourage diverse thinking and more individualism if it is to be relevant in the new world order, and that in this respect the West is more innovative because it is highly creative. I believe herein lies the Singapore Dilemma. Our leaders understand that individualism is the key to success in a vibrant economy. However, an individualistic nation is one full of alternatives voices and that makes it unruly and harder to control.
Our leaders know that if it were to follow through with the one-track one-dimension educational process at the tertiary level then Singapore is truly doomed because the first twelve years of education is already extremely highly controlled to ensure conformity to the system. Somehow it has to correct, to a certain extent, the rigidity of the typical Singaporean mind at the tertiary level or else it loses the ability to compete in the global market. Nevertheless, there can’t be too many thinking people or it is a nation of people that would be less compliant and harder to rule.
It is here the value of the ‘Ang Mo’ professors has a high market price in Singapore. Why not pay western trained Singaporean professors the same? Answer: Twelve years of rigidity doesn’t go away in a few years. Neuroscientist will tell you if you wish to condition anyone it must be done during the early years of a person’s life and not in the later stages.
As an analogy consider the story of the scorpion and the frog. A scorpion which can’t swim and the frog met each other at a riverside. Both wanted to go to the other side. The scorpion asked the frog to give him a lift on his back as a favour. The frog always wary of poisonous scorpion laughed at the suggestion and told the scorpion he is not that dumb. The scorpion being the clever fellow he was persuasively made out his case the frog has nothing to worry about because if he were to be stung then both of them would drown and why would the scorpion wants to commit suicide. The kind frog reflected on this line of logic and was convinced the scorpion was sincere. He allowed the scorpion to crawl onto his back and he started swimming toward the other side of the river. Merrily he swam and both of them exchanged stories about their families and they were fast becoming good friends. Somewhere in the middle of the river the frog suddenly felt a stinging sensation and realized that he has been stung by the scorpion. As he was losing his senses he looked up and weakly asked: why did you sting me? The scorpion replied: It is my nature.
In short, by the time the typical Singaporean reaches the age when they are ready for tertiary education it is their nature not to question authority. Another few years of education abroad will not change anything. Even then something is better than nothing. If you are wondering why all our leaders’ kids are studying abroad this is it: something is better than nothing. It is also the reason why, in the eyes of our tertiary educators, returning Singaporean has lesser value than one that is thoroughly educated abroad from day one.
Of course the other reason is because the University system is skewed towards favouring professors that can publish academic papers printed in top journals. It is very hard for Singaporeans brought up with twelve years of rigidity in our educational system to suddenly have original thinking when in the previous twelve years they were compelled not to do so.
If you want to find original thinking in Singapore look to those that don’t fit into our educational system but yet are street smart and have a strong sense of their worth in our society. These are the ‘non-academic’ people who do very well in the business world and will survive under any condition because they never really undergone the full course of our educational system proper. They don’t do well in our educational system. They are always hovering at the back of the class minding their own business and often the bane of our teachers who feel they are bringing down the class grade average and his year-end bonus. You can find more original thinker in this category of people compared with Singaporean that had been thoroughly indoctrinated with the Singapore Way.
This explains why NUS and NTU is choke-full of professors that can’t teach or speak English good enough to not sound like a foreign language to the typical Singapore student: they can write papers that are published in top journals. The more papers are published in top journals the higher the ranking of NUS or NTU. The higher the ranking the NUS or NTU the higher the pay and bonuses of the people running it.
If you want to find out what is wrong with any system just follow the money.
.
No wonder, sinkie losers here will bend down immediately when they see a sign board commanding them to do so.
Education System In Singapore
July 13th, 2011 | Author: Contributions
Whenever there is a problem I prefer to question why are people behaving in a certain way rather than simply admonishing them for their bad or incorrect behaviour.
Recently, our learned LKY gave the world the good advice that China should encourage diverse thinking and more individualism if it is to be relevant in the new world order, and that in this respect the West is more innovative because it is highly creative. I believe herein lies the Singapore Dilemma. Our leaders understand that individualism is the key to success in a vibrant economy. However, an individualistic nation is one full of alternatives voices and that makes it unruly and harder to control.
Our leaders know that if it were to follow through with the one-track one-dimension educational process at the tertiary level then Singapore is truly doomed because the first twelve years of education is already extremely highly controlled to ensure conformity to the system. Somehow it has to correct, to a certain extent, the rigidity of the typical Singaporean mind at the tertiary level or else it loses the ability to compete in the global market. Nevertheless, there can’t be too many thinking people or it is a nation of people that would be less compliant and harder to rule.
It is here the value of the ‘Ang Mo’ professors has a high market price in Singapore. Why not pay western trained Singaporean professors the same? Answer: Twelve years of rigidity doesn’t go away in a few years. Neuroscientist will tell you if you wish to condition anyone it must be done during the early years of a person’s life and not in the later stages.
As an analogy consider the story of the scorpion and the frog. A scorpion which can’t swim and the frog met each other at a riverside. Both wanted to go to the other side. The scorpion asked the frog to give him a lift on his back as a favour. The frog always wary of poisonous scorpion laughed at the suggestion and told the scorpion he is not that dumb. The scorpion being the clever fellow he was persuasively made out his case the frog has nothing to worry about because if he were to be stung then both of them would drown and why would the scorpion wants to commit suicide. The kind frog reflected on this line of logic and was convinced the scorpion was sincere. He allowed the scorpion to crawl onto his back and he started swimming toward the other side of the river. Merrily he swam and both of them exchanged stories about their families and they were fast becoming good friends. Somewhere in the middle of the river the frog suddenly felt a stinging sensation and realized that he has been stung by the scorpion. As he was losing his senses he looked up and weakly asked: why did you sting me? The scorpion replied: It is my nature.
In short, by the time the typical Singaporean reaches the age when they are ready for tertiary education it is their nature not to question authority. Another few years of education abroad will not change anything. Even then something is better than nothing. If you are wondering why all our leaders’ kids are studying abroad this is it: something is better than nothing. It is also the reason why, in the eyes of our tertiary educators, returning Singaporean has lesser value than one that is thoroughly educated abroad from day one.
Of course the other reason is because the University system is skewed towards favouring professors that can publish academic papers printed in top journals. It is very hard for Singaporeans brought up with twelve years of rigidity in our educational system to suddenly have original thinking when in the previous twelve years they were compelled not to do so.
If you want to find original thinking in Singapore look to those that don’t fit into our educational system but yet are street smart and have a strong sense of their worth in our society. These are the ‘non-academic’ people who do very well in the business world and will survive under any condition because they never really undergone the full course of our educational system proper. They don’t do well in our educational system. They are always hovering at the back of the class minding their own business and often the bane of our teachers who feel they are bringing down the class grade average and his year-end bonus. You can find more original thinker in this category of people compared with Singaporean that had been thoroughly indoctrinated with the Singapore Way.
This explains why NUS and NTU is choke-full of professors that can’t teach or speak English good enough to not sound like a foreign language to the typical Singapore student: they can write papers that are published in top journals. The more papers are published in top journals the higher the ranking of NUS or NTU. The higher the ranking the NUS or NTU the higher the pay and bonuses of the people running it.
If you want to find out what is wrong with any system just follow the money.
.
No wonder, sinkie losers here will bend down immediately when they see a sign board commanding them to do so.
