Saturday, May 12, 2012

Education standards in Singapore unrealistic

Napier Road Centre, Singapore (26 September 2008) 
An ex-colleague of mine Ian Tan wrote an article for Today titled 'Standards are unrealistic' recently.

He said that the standards of Singapore education is too high. I agree.

Many parents who commented on that page also agree.

But MOE has the audacity to disagree, saying standards have remained the same. I guess that means Singapore parents are more stupid now.

There's no point in setting such standards so high that they become ridiculous. After all, most of the things you learn in primary and secondary school will be forgotten, except the languages.

The unrealistic standards create a stressful learning environment. It kills the passion to learn. The most important thing schools can impart to students is the passion to learn. When you force people to learn, it makes learning less attractive. You won't see a lot of people taking initiative to learn on their own. Or to take initiative, for that matter.

I want to make special mention on the point of problem solving as mentioned in the article. When you have kids that just follow stipulated route to finding answers, they won't be able to think creatively to solve problems in the future, in life.

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