Education getting softer in Singapore and the GEP

[inlinesix]

4 hours ago, Benarsenal said:

They don't care one.

They are unlikely to be the types to get office jobs. These are the types who will end up becoming 'influencer' (or rather, they call it now, 'content creator'), or failing which, do GrabFoodPanda.

Not everyone is suitable for 9-5 office job

[Wind30]

9 hours ago, Windwaver said:

Understand your pain but the highest earner (today) from my secondary school class was almost the worst student year after year during my time.

Life can be rather unpredictable so I guess seeing your kids grow up healthy is the greatest gift any parent can get 🙂

Maybe just keep a look out for any bad company along the way 🙂

Totally agree on the health part. I just found out my daughters 2.4 time is worse than mine…. She is not over weight so it’s kind of a huge surprise considering my time is pretty bad too. Got her to jog with me on weekends… 

U cannot take the outlier and compare lah. Same as grades u don’t use the highest mark as benchmark right? My cohort has one guy who literally scored 100 for almost all his math exams. 
The data is clear if u take the average. Study well, u earn more in the future on average. Everyone knows there are outliers but as parents u go with the averages right. Make sure kid study well, stay healthy. 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Wind30

[Ody_2004]

10 hours ago, inlinesix said:

Without COVID, no adoption of e-wallet at hawker centres

With track transaction hawkers scare mah.. Tax man come how? whahahahahahahha..

Just like driving instructor.. Paynow oso CANNOT! CASH only..

[Jamesc]

Why use narrow definitions?

GDP doesn't tell you everything about the economy.

Grades don't tell you everything about the person.

[Watwheels]

It seems fathers dont pay much attention to the changes in the education system. I'm not saying it is your fault cos I too need to seek explanation from my wife who paid attention.

From next year onwards no more Express, Normal(A) and Normal(T) streaming in secondary schools. Got time, can do some reading. It will be vastly different from what we went thru as a kid. See link below.

https://mothership.sg/2022/03/moe-to-remove-nt-na-express-streaming-in-secondary-schools-from-2024/

Students will be a mix in a class but their textbooks will be different according to their weakness and strength in individual subjects. I also not sure how exactly it works. We were from a different system afterall.

Ironically the education system is doing the opposite of what they did previously that is to not focus so much on numbers and scores. It is not good in terms of mental health for both children and parents. Maybe becos there are too many siao lang everywhere now.

If we were to look back the education system has gradually made progress thru out the years. If we look at our era, the education system is brutal. Those who failed PSLE, they drop out of school and that's it for their future. Maybe they have another chance in primary 7 and 8 but who will be motivated to study? Later 2nd chance schools were introduced to help those who cannot pass psle due to learning challenges. Assumption pathway school and Northlight school. These students will eventually move on to ITE colleges. I dunno whether these 2 schools will continue to exist.

MOE wants to do away with the streamings, no more segregations. In the past the emphasis on "selecting" the elites is very high but those who didnt make the mark are more or less abandoned. Which is a waste as they have other strengths. We are a nation with no natural resources, the only assets are its people, so make everyone count lo.

[Mkl22]

2 hours ago, Wind30 said:

… 

U cannot take the outlier and compare lah. Same as grades u don’t use the highest mark as benchmark right? My cohort has one guy who literally scored 100 for almost all his math exams. 
 

and then where is this 100 perfect score guy now? better or worse off than you? 🙂

Edited January 9, 2023 by Mkl22

[Mkl22]

34 minutes ago, Watwheels said:

It seems fathers dont pay much attention to the changes in the education system. I'm not saying it is your fault cos I too need to seek explanation from my wife who paid attention.

From next year onwards no more Express, Normal(A) and Normal(T) streaming in secondary schools. Got time, can do some reading. It will be vastly different from what we went thru as a kid. See link below.

https://mothership.sg/2022/03/moe-to-remove-nt-na-express-streaming-in-secondary-schools-from-2024/

Students will be a mix in a class but their textbooks will be different according to their weakness and strength in individual subjects. I also not sure how exactly it works. We were from a different system afterall.

Ironically the education system is doing the opposite of what they did previously that is to not focus so much on numbers and scores. It is not good in terms of mental health for both children and parents. Maybe becos there are too many siao lang everywhere now.

If we were to look back the education system has gradually made progress thru out the years. If we look at our era, the education system is brutal. Those who failed PSLE, they drop out of school and that's it for their future. Maybe they have another chance in primary 7 and 8 but who will be motivated to study? Later 2nd chance schools were introduced to help those who cannot pass psle due to learning challenges. Assumption pathway school and Northlight school. These students will eventually move on to ITE colleges. I dunno whether these 2 schools will continue to exist.

MOE wants to do away with the streamings, no more segregations. In the past the emphasis on "selecting" the elites is very high but those who didnt make the mark are more or less abandoned. Which is a waste as they have other strengths. We are a nation with no natural resources, the only assets are its people, so make everyone count lo.

and then the elites protect their own. all the preselected scholars from A-levels and Ivy league uni can do no wrong. regardless of their performance as long as say yes sir yes sir 3 bags full is good enough. look at Mr Umbrage, the only positive thing that he brought to his fellow singaporeans was the word "umbrage".  everything else he touched lost money and crumbled.

from what i have observed our policy here is

1. use scholars from A-levels

2. pay and bring in foreign consultants

if you don't fit into these 2 categories, you are always a peasant and have to take direction from the top.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Mkl22

[Watwheels]

13 hours ago, Achtung said:

The only thing I find ridiculous is... the PSLE Assessment Level aka AL.

 

The current AL scoring is actually beneficial to weaker students. No good thing about it is good students may fall in the average category. The best of the best will really stand out.

 

[Watwheels]

2 minutes ago, Mkl22 said:

and then the elites protect their own. all the preselected scholars from A-levels and Ivy league uni can do no wrong. regardless of their performance as long as say yes sir yes sir 3 bags full is good enough. look at Mr Umbrage, the only positive thing that he brought to his fellow singaporeans was the word "umbrage".  everything else he touched lost money and crumbled.

Haha, true.

Remember what LTK said when he was working as a teacher many years ago? He mentioned that he realised most of his students will not make it in their studies and then their future because of how brutal the education system was. He was like saying basically it was like elimination round where weaker students are being kicked out of the system.

And you look at now. How long it took for change to arrive? It is kinda sad.

[inlinesix]

18 minutes ago, Mkl22 said:

and then the elites protect their own. all the preselected scholars from A-levels and Ivy league uni can do no wrong. regardless of their performance as long as say yes sir yes sir 3 bags full is good enough. look at Mr Umbrage, the only positive thing that he brought to his fellow singaporeans was the word "umbrage".  everything else he touched lost money and crumbled.

from what i have observed our policy here is

1. use scholars from A-levels

2. pay and bring in foreign consultants

if you don't fit into these 2 categories, you are always a peasant and have to take direction from the top.

Mr Umbrage was brought to do the hard work that no one is willing to risk their career.

1. Sell off NOL.  The owner then was Temasek

2. Privatise SPH Media Biz.

1 of the reason why we lacking in innovation is The Government don't want to increase Oppo in Parliment.

1. That is reflected in the use of scholars from A-Level.  Must follow order.  No breaking from rank.

2. Due to lack of innovation locally, of course must use foreign consultants lo.

[Sosaria]

Like many ideas from the top, tweaks in education system is good idea long overdue but implementation on the ground is poor.

No matter what changes made in the system, KPI for schools remained the same - to produce certain number of 'A' or graduate in the prescribed standard number of years. 

Changes in education system pushed lower academic ability and less motivated students forward even though they may not be ready.

So you end up with this issue, teachers grappling with a general decline in cohort standards while trying to meet school KPI. Anyone can guess what happens?

Edited January 9, 2023 by Sosaria

[Confusedboi]

Why was Nanyang university (Nantah)  closed down? Heard it was Chinese based teaching and Low thia Kiang was one of the last batches to graduate from there. Was it common for some schools in primary and secondary to teach in Chinese in those days before gahmen forced all schools to change to teach in English ? 

[Victor68]

Once upon a time, we are nobody. Whatever grade we scored from our schools, nobody take notice. So they have to build that standard before RI and the rest are known to the world that education system here has that standing. Then we accept qualifications from many other countries, our people also fly abroad to obtain those certificates they couldn't get locally. Of course we either match them or lose out lor.

Not everyone is born the same but we perform differently only.

[Yeshe]

On 1/7/2023 at 9:38 PM, Throttle2 said:

 

i know you are scholar, but dont always compare grades lah.   Not as if your kids are failing or doing that badly. 
everything also must compete meh?  Wah kao!

Can compare assets so that he can have a feel of benchmark in mcf???

[Yeshe]

1 hour ago, Watwheels said:

The current AL scoring is actually beneficial to weaker students. No good thing about it is good students may fall in the average category. The best of the best will really stand out.

 

Nope, the weaker students will just fall into the same batch ie AL23-25

[Wind30]

3 hours ago, Mkl22 said:

and then where is this 100 perfect score guy now? better or worse off than you? 🙂

I did not keep in touch but I think he is doing much better than me. Goldman sachs I heard.

he not only got into Princeton I think he was like top student there. 

[Wind30]

3 hours ago, Watwheels said:

It seems fathers dont pay much attention to the changes in the education system. I'm not saying it is your fault cos I too need to seek explanation from my wife who paid attention.

From next year onwards no more Express, Normal(A) and Normal(T) streaming in secondary schools. Got time, can do some reading. It will be vastly different from what we went thru as a kid. See link below.

https://mothership.sg/2022/03/moe-to-remove-nt-na-express-streaming-in-secondary-schools-from-2024/

Students will be a mix in a class but their textbooks will be different according to their weakness and strength in individual subjects. I also not sure how exactly it works. We were from a different system afterall.

Ironically the education system is doing the opposite of what they did previously that is to not focus so much on numbers and scores. It is not good in terms of mental health for both children and parents. Maybe becos there are too many siao lang everywhere now.

If we were to look back the education system has gradually made progress thru out the years. If we look at our era, the education system is brutal. Those who failed PSLE, they drop out of school and that's it for their future. Maybe they have another chance in primary 7 and 8 but who will be motivated to study? Later 2nd chance schools were introduced to help those who cannot pass psle due to learning challenges. Assumption pathway school and Northlight school. These students will eventually move on to ITE colleges. I dunno whether these 2 schools will continue to exist.

MOE wants to do away with the streamings, no more segregations. In the past the emphasis on "selecting" the elites is very high but those who didnt make the mark are more or less abandoned. Which is a waste as they have other strengths. We are a nation with no natural resources, the only assets are its people, so make everyone count lo.

Err…. That is what I am complaining about. Getting soft in our education. Taking care of the weaker students, or the masses to be politically correct.

Just ask yourself, for the good of Singapore, who will have the most impact/good for the country? ITE student or GEP student on average. I can tell u the positions of my old gep class and what they do now. 

I just need to be clear I am not advocating throwing the ITE students under the bus, and it is not black and white but a spectrum. I just feel we are leaning too much the other way. 
 

the primary goal of any education system I feel is to develop the people, but not equally… more emphasis has to be placed of the “elites” however dirty that word is. At the end of the day, the high achievers will impact our country so much more. 

[Tkseah]

47 minutes ago, Wind30 said:

Err…. That is what I am complaining about. Getting soft in our education. Taking care of the weaker students, or the masses to be politically correct.

Just ask yourself, for the good of Singapore, who will have the most impact/good for the country? ITE student or GEP student on average. I can tell u the positions of my old gep class and what they do now. 

I just need to be clear I am not advocating throwing the ITE students under the bus, and it is not black and white but a spectrum. I just feel we are leaning too much the other way. 
 

the primary goal of any education system I feel is to develop the people, but not equally… more emphasis has to be placed of the “elites” however dirty that word is. At the end of the day, the high achievers will impact our country so much more. 

By advocating to place more emphasis to develop the "elites", how is that different from throwing the non-elites under the bus?  In terms of who needs more help, it is obvious it is the non-elites that need more help. Think in terms of havings 2 kids, one very smart and quick learning, the other not so smart and slower to learn.  Who do you focus more of your energy and resources to help? If you channel more energy and resources to help the smart one, where do you think the not so smart one will end up?

One of my friend has 2 kids, older bro is normal n bright, while younger bro has mild autism n has difficulty with learning.  More time, energy and resouces is spent on helping the younger bro.  Older bro is not neglected, but think he understands why the family has to focus a little bit more on the younger bro.