mollymeek (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mollymeek) wrote,@ 2008-08-17 09:35:00 |
|
The Education System Will Not Change
When peasants rumble in Internet forums about the obsession with grades and the need to look beyond them, no one gives a damn. But when a well-paid minister utter something similar, the media will lap it up as though it is a piece of original wisdom.
Let's not harp on the point that minister is merely saying something a few million others could have said. What "more" does he think that the education system can do?
More teachers with higher qualifications.
But this is Singapore. That can't be all. Surely, we can't have the wrong type of highly qualified teachers? We need the right type of highly qualified teachers who will do the most important job of all: impart values.
What sort of values? Minister Ng says:
These sound very positive and benign. Except that anyone who has been through Singapore's world-class nation-building value-instilling PAP-aggrandizing education system should know that the values that schools impart go beyond preparing students for life. Everything is National Education, which is actually a euphemism for the subject that ought to be named, "What the PAP has done for You". There's Social Studies, a compulsory 'O' Levels subject with textbooks that look like . . . erm . . . Straits Times articles? There's Health Education, Moral Education, Hao Gong Ming ("Good Citizen" in Chinese). Not to mention Racial Harmony. Not to mention the latest idiocy about teaching students Love.
Yes, the Education must change. But it will not.
The government is too bent on creating its ideal population. Change? Will it change such that it will allow the birth of a few thousand socially irresponsible bimbos like Molly every year? Will it ever change such that it will facilitate the development of true critical thinking (not the Social Studies sort where the issues have already been framed such that you can't possibly think in the "wrong" ways and still make sense in your exams)? Will it impart to students the importance of having a free press, of privacy, of human rights? (It's more likely to impart to students the values of nation-building, which means self-effacement for the good of the powers that be.)
Change, yes. But go beyond logistics. The education system needs a radical change. It needs to shed the paternalism that has penetrated every cell of Singapore. But it won't.
It won't and we will probably be told that the status quo is necessary for us to survive. So that others can't conspire to do us in.
We will change to make Singapore look dynamic. But, first tuck in your shirt, lengthen your skirt, cut your hair, dye it back to black, learn the right morals, abstain from sex but get married soon and have babies, contribute to the nation, continue to gets your As (or else . . .), continue to excel in CCAs (or else . . .). And never forget that Singapore is a small, vulnerable island with no natural resource, so it needs good leadership (and that means the PAP should rule forever, if you still don't get it).
Change? Cats can bark.
When peasants rumble in Internet forums about the obsession with grades and the need to look beyond them, no one gives a damn. But when a well-paid minister utter something similar, the media will lap it up as though it is a piece of original wisdom.
[Singapore's education system] needs to do more than simply churn out students with good grades, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said . . in a speech at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. ("Next Step for Schools", The Straits Times, August 15 2008)
Let's not harp on the point that minister is merely saying something a few million others could have said. What "more" does he think that the education system can do?
More teachers with higher qualifications.
But this is Singapore. That can't be all. Surely, we can't have the wrong type of highly qualified teachers? We need the right type of highly qualified teachers who will do the most important job of all: impart values.
Finally, Dr Ng said, the system needs to impart values, not just grades, to students.
What sort of values? Minister Ng says:
At the end of their journey in our education system, (students) must leave it with a sense of wholeness and preparedness, and a desire to contribute to preserve, maintain and improve themselves and the lives of those around them,' he said.
'They must leave our education system confident of their self worth, and capable of being productive citizens.
These sound very positive and benign. Except that anyone who has been through Singapore's world-class nation-building value-instilling PAP-aggrandizing education system should know that the values that schools impart go beyond preparing students for life. Everything is National Education, which is actually a euphemism for the subject that ought to be named, "What the PAP has done for You". There's Social Studies, a compulsory 'O' Levels subject with textbooks that look like . . . erm . . . Straits Times articles? There's Health Education, Moral Education, Hao Gong Ming ("Good Citizen" in Chinese). Not to mention Racial Harmony. Not to mention the latest idiocy about teaching students Love.
Yes, the Education must change. But it will not.
The government is too bent on creating its ideal population. Change? Will it change such that it will allow the birth of a few thousand socially irresponsible bimbos like Molly every year? Will it ever change such that it will facilitate the development of true critical thinking (not the Social Studies sort where the issues have already been framed such that you can't possibly think in the "wrong" ways and still make sense in your exams)? Will it impart to students the importance of having a free press, of privacy, of human rights? (It's more likely to impart to students the values of nation-building
Change, yes. But go beyond logistics. The education system needs a radical change. It needs to shed the paternalism that has penetrated every cell of Singapore. But it won't.
It won't and we will probably be told that the status quo is necessary for us to survive. So that others can't conspire to do us in.
We will change to make Singapore look dynamic. But, first tuck in your shirt, lengthen your skirt, cut your hair, dye it back to black, learn the right morals, abstain from sex but get married soon and have babies, contribute to the nation, continue to gets your As (or else . . .), continue to excel in CCAs (or else . . .). And never forget that Singapore is a small, vulnerable island with no natural resource, so it needs good leadership (and that means the PAP should rule forever, if you still don't get it).
Change? Cats can bark.
