Woke up early to get on Capital 95.8FM 官方Facebook’s morning show to discuss the latest survey about Singapore parents’ perception on education.
We had a discussion on many issues including whether PSLE should be removed as an overhaul of the system.
I argued for the removal of PSLE- it’s not only to reduce stress for the student, but also to aid the real purpose of learning- to simply learn.
Without a streaming system, students can have the luxury of learning for the sake of learning. We don’t have to worry about being penalized for silly things such as writing “–>” instead of “=” in a Maths sum (this is really ridiculous in my opinion). Instead, we should be learning for the sake of learning.
If streaming were just to help weaker students learn better, that’s worth considering. But if it were to stream them into different career paths at 12 years old, I am not for it. The other guest argued one can switch from Normal Tech to Express stream and ITE students can move on to polys, so streaming shouldn’t affect them. In fact, she argued students should be streamed at an even earlier age at nine years old.
I disagreed vehemently.
We did have streaming at nine during my time. Do we really want to put them through streaming at nine? It’s not 1980 again, is it? With modern society evolving so rapidly and industries constantly being replaced at breakneck speed, we want our students to be creative and adaptable. I don’t think streaming solves this problem.
Also, regardless whether a student can move on to poly from ITE or from Normal Tech to Express stream is secondary (it’s not easy btw), imagine a child pigeonholed at 12. He would be indulging in a self-fulfilling prophecy, thinking that he is incapable of achieving more than what he did in primary school. That’s sad, isn’t it?
Education the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. Our system is top in the world but of course, there’s room for improvement.
We only had a short 40-minute chat on air, so there’s much more to discuss but we had a great exchange of ideas on how we can all make the system work for our children.
There was one thing everyone agreed on- to provide the best education for the child, we need the cooperation of the ministry, the school, the teachers, the parents and the kid.
It’s not a one-sided top-down approach.
We are in this together. from Study Room http://ift.tt/2u3fGr3