Yee Jenn Jong

Do young Singaporeans lack drive and willingness to venture out?

yeejj ♦ February 3, 2012 ♦ 6 Comments

At a recent forum at the Singapore Management University, Education Minister Heng Swee Kiat expressed his concern about young Singaporeans’ perceived lack of drive and lack of willingness to venture out of their comfort zone. He was given this feedback earlier by a group of CEOs who owned their own companies.

A personal experience with driven young Singaporeans

Do young Singaporeans lack drive? While I think the CEOs that Mr Heng mentioned had their valid concerns, my experience has given me confidence that there are Singaporeans who can have drive, when given the opportunity to unleash it.

I used to run a local operations that had 140 employees at its peak, with Singaporeans and PRs forming the majority. They were mostly recent graduates from local polytechnics and universities. The nature of the business required many Infocomm Technology (ICT) diploma graduates to be posted to local schools to train students in ICT skills and to assist with e-learning deployment. Many stay less than 3 years in this line as they took it as a stepping stone to other ICT professions. It was the norm in the industry we operated in. Hence over the 9-year period that I ran the business, I had the opportunity to observe as employer, a few hundred young Singaporeans with at least a diploma qualification.

I encountered Singaporeans on both ends of the spectrum – highly motivated and driven ones as well as those wanting to do just the minimum required of the job. As a growing start-up, we constantly needed people to fill key positions, namely in sales and operation management as well as middle managers to oversee an expanding operation. Initially, we hired people with track record in their previous jobs not related to our industry. It didn’t quite work out because the school environment was very different from that of the corporate world. We changed our human resource policy to recruit our own outstanding ICT educators placed out in the schools to fill key positions in the corporate office.

We had limited vacancies each year, so we would only promote those who had done exceptionally well in their existing jobs. We kept our eyes and ears on our pool of ICT educators to determine who had the drive to succeed in a new and more challenging role. This internal hiring policy was made known to all staff.

We could find Singaporeans with the drive to succeed. We increased their challenge level and some rose above that. Qualifications didn’t matter. What mattered was Attitude. Those who could perform the tasks were given the opportunity. The one who eventually rose to lead the software development team had come through a vocation institute and the one who led the company after I exited the business was originally a non-ICT polytechnic graduate, though he later obtained his Bachelor degree and MBA while working for the company. I observed that a lot of what they knew were self taught. Many rose through our junior ranks to hold key positions. What set them apart was the drive to succeed. Those who impressed me the most with their positive attitudes were all Singaporeans.

Is the lack of drive and willingness to venture out real?

So young Singaporeans can have drive. I could find those I needed to fill my business needs when I threw open the challenge and empowered those we identified. However, I understand where these CEOs were coming from. I too had my fair share of young Singaporean staff who lacked drive and initiative. 

Twenty years ago, as a university teaching staff, I had many young researcher colleagues from China and India as NUS opened up its postgraduate programmes to foreigners. Most came as singles and worked hard. How hard we work is sometimes related to how much we have. Those who have little often aspire to have a better life. That aspiration can drive them to work hard.

I visited Vietnam frequently in the mid 1990s, both for work and for a university course which involved a case study of Vietnam. I observed young Vietnamese in their twenties working a day job and attending courses or working a second job in the evenings. Learning centres for English, IT or business skills were packed, sometimes with one instructor to 100 students in the low-cost learning centres. I thought to myself then that they would surely give their neighbouring economies a good run for their money, once good policies are in place. The population was young, hardworking and driven. I observed the same thing of China too, with people competing hard to rise above the rest.

However, in recent years, I noticed children of rich Vietnamese and Chinese less driven than those I saw a decade ago. They have the choice of enrolling in private and international schools and their needs are well taken care of. I could hardly see any overweight Vietnamese children or adults in the 1990s. You can find them quite easily now.

Too much good things can make a person less driven. I like Steve Jobs’ philosophy for life, which was to “stay hungry, stay foolish.” When we have this attitude, even when we have enough comforts for a good living, we should continue to find in us the hunger to do more. Doing more does not necessarily mean acquiring more material wealth, it can also be about finding fulfilment in achieving.

Singapore had prospered in recent decades. Our forefathers were definitely hungrier and many were driven by the need to find a livelihood. From this perspective, perhaps the CEOs were right in that they could find hungrier workers from China and India.

We have also been conditioned to follow a fixed path for success. Study hard, do well in your examinations and you will be able to get a stable job. Schools prefer to get students take subjects that have definite answers because we can drill students to get the correct answers in examinations. We shun subjects that have ambiguous answers. So it is not surprising that in our culture, the willingness to embrace ambiguity and get out of the comfort zone seems lacking compared to other societies where people are either forced by circumstances to venture out or because they have been conditioned from young to handle ambiguity.

Having said so, I would not make a generalisation and say that all young Singaporeans are risk averse. As an entrepreneur, I have met many young Singaporeans taking the unconventional and risky path of start-ups. In running my business, I found Singaporeans willing to thrust into new and more challenging roles. However overall, I agree that there is a worrying trend of more people becoming less willing to venture out into the unknown.

What can our education system do about this?

The important question is what we can do to increase students’ drive and their willingness to take on new challenges? We cannot re-create a situation of poverty to make people have more drive or force them to venture out for the sake of finding a livelihood. How can we use our education system to prepare students better for the 21st century economy?

I suggest we can explore a few areas:

1. Embrace ambiguity and uncertainty

Our curriculum should not be afraid of exposing students to subjects that are ambiguous. Subjects such as literature, art and political studies will open students’ minds to alternative viewpoints. We should encourage students to debate over different opinions. Debating is not easy to handle in schools but should not be shunned.

Ambiguity happens all the time in life. Steve Jobs in his 2005 speech at Stanford university, shared the story of connecting the dots in his life. Many events in life cannot be fully planned for. He recounted how random decisions he made earlier in life only connected in the future to become important influencers in his success. One was his decision to drop out of college but staying on to pursue courses that interest him. The course on calligraphy exposed him to what great typography was about. Ten years later, he introduced that in the Macintosh to create the first computer with beautiful typography.

Steve Jobs was learning, not studying for a course requirement. The assimilated knowledge became useful later on. We should not be afraid of exposing students to content outside of their core requirement. We should also encourage them to be adaptable to apply what they have learnt to different context. Being able to handle ambiguity and uncertainty will prepare students better to take on new challenges.

2. Promote inquisitiveness

An Israeli Nobel prize winner was interviewed on Singapore radio some years back. He summarized the key difference between Israel and Singapore education with a story. He said when he was a young student, his mother would ask him when he returned from school, what good questions he had asked in school that day. The Singaporean mother would ask how the child did in spelling tests and examinations.

Would our teachers encourage children to ask curious questions in class, even those out of syllabus? Would parents be more interested to know if their children had asked good questions rather than to know their performance in a test? Kids are naturally curious. I hope the formal education our children go through will protect and nurture this inquisitiveness and not kill it with conformity to standards and expectations.

3. Celebrate innovation and creativity

Renowned education thinker Sir Ken Robinson observed from a longitudinal study of 1,500 children over 10 years that divergent (creative) thinking decreases with age. He observed that the current education system was invented during the industrial revolution but has not adapted to fit the fast changing dynamic world that bombards us with loads of instant information and is paved with uncertainty.

The ability to constantly innovate is important to survive in the 21^st century. By exposing children to, as well as guiding them through tasks that require them to be innovative and creative at an early age, they can become more confident in taking on new challenges later in life. I believe the school curriculum can be redesigned to incorporate more opportunities for students to practice innovation and creativity. Give them the space to explore solutions to problems.

4. Learn resilience and other key life skills

Developing resilience will increase our ability to handle setbacks and provide greater drive to succeed. I read with interest the Straits Times report on 30 January 2012 that “SAF seeks to build mental toughness in recruits.” SAF found that recruits who went through its resilience-building programme outjumped, outran, outshot and outperformed those who did not.

Sounds wonderful. Why start only at National Service? The programme should be shared with MOE to see if it can be adapted and used in schools.

Resilience can best be learnt through life experiences. This is where I believe Co-Curricula Activities (CCAs) are important. CCA when implemented seriously, can build mental toughness and discipline. When CCAs involve competitions, it can bring out the experiences of the joy of victory and the pain of defeat. It can instil discipline and create the drive in students to win. Hence, I thought the 2010 Secondary Education Review and Implementation (SERI) committee report had a good recommendation to introduce more 2^nd tier competitions to allow for greater participation of students. I hope this will be seriously carried out.

5. Deal with our examination culture

The most major factor driving our mindset of education is the heavy emphasis on examinations. Examinations are useful for determining how well students have learnt. However, by having many high stake examinations throughout the student’s journey, education becomes skewed towards delivering for examinations rather than on actual learning. It defines what schools will do to ensure good performance at examinations. Parents put children through hours of tuitions weekly out of fear that poor performance at any one of the key examinations will destroy the child’s future.

Students may end up being examination-smart but not really learning. They may become conditioned that the one way to succeed is drilling for examinations. Those who do well in their studies will tend to seek a secure and proven path in their career, as the risk of venturing out may be too high for them.

Tackling the examination culture will be very difficult because it has become so entrenched in our system and in the mindset of the population. But we will need to take a critical look at the issue and make changes where necessary, otherwise good initiatives will be killed in the process of implementation by the examination culture.

Conclusion

I believe that by adjusting our education approach, we can help improve the drive in Singaporeans and build up their willingness to accept new challenges. Having a can-do and resilient mindset will take Singapore forward into our next lap.

I Not Stupid (小孩不笨)

yeejj ♦ January 26, 2012 ♦ 21 Comments

 Finnish System, As Told By A Senior Finnish Educator

I had a chance meeting in London with a Finnish gentleman who is in charge of Finland’s Mathematics curriculum. I had read about Finland’s education system. I had referred to it in one of my blog posts. A Singaporean living in Finland read my post and then contributed a comprehensive article comparing our education system with Finland’s.

Despite what I already knew, it was useful to be able to clarify my knowledge of the system with someone who is actively implementing it. He shared the following:

(1) There is only one curriculum, for both fast and slow learners. Unlike our system with many branching points into different academic streams and school types, Finland has only one system and one curriculum for all.

(2) Students of mixed abilities are put into the same class. This is deliberate because they do not want students to be labelled. He said, “otherwise, later in their lives, they would remember that they were branded as ‘no-good’.”

Teachers learnt to deal with the situation. He said, sometimes a teacher aide or another teacher will be there to help the slower students. It does call for a more creative way to organise the classroom to deal with this. Teachers have great empowerment to organise their classrooms and to make individual learning plans for each student. (An internet article quoted Finland’s Minister for Education stating that the average class size for all grades is 21 students. Every teacher must have a Masters qualification. The teaching profession is highly respected.)

(3) At age 16, when students finish basic education, there is NO national examinations. The results from schools are used for entering into academic track or a vocational track.

(4) Finland acknowledges that they only have people (5 million of them) and trees, with no oil and other natural resources. So they believe that education is very important for their economy to keep competitive.

(5) For the system to work, it had to get the support of the community and parents. Everyone must ‘buy-into’ the system and make it work, and they have. (A Finnish resident told me the system is a WON -Whole Of Nation approach. Parents do take active involvement in the lives, thoughts and well-being of their children.)

Despite going against the conventional practices of many other countries, we see that Finland is able to produce top scores in international tests, as well as create globally competitive companies (think Nokia, Angry Birds).

Bottom-Friendly Versus Top-Conscious

What struck me the most in that conversation was the concern that those at the bottom will feel that they are no good. The labelling may destroy their self-worth. I thought to myself that this is a very gentle system.

While Singapore also provide good physical and teaching resources to the academically less abled, such as good facilities in the ITEs, the philosophy behind our system and Finland’s are poles apart. We have a competitive system that consciously sieve out students based on examination scores at regular intervals. We pick up the top to set students apart so we can push them with more challenging curriculum. We select the gifted at 9 years old. We classify students by subject ability at 10 years old. Then comes the PSLE at 12 years old, which is essentially a big sorting exercise. We now have Integrated Programme (IP) schools, Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools and regular schools that offer Express stream, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) streams. Even amongst these regular schools, years of school branding and ranking exercises have moved schools into bands according to their Cut-off Point based on PSLE T-Score.

From an organisational point of view, sorting out students allows curriculum to be more targeted and resources to be channelled more efficiently. However, it creates a highly stressed and competitive society where tuition is the norm. The academic score of the student determines greatly what will happen to the child: the type of schools, the choice of academic streams and even to some extent, the career opportunities. Those at the top can choose from a good range of scholarships, which then determine their career paths. These sort of pressures are applied to children from a young age, often before they can fully appreciate the importance of doing well in examinations.

Does such a system create disparate talent ponds? If so, where will this lead us to?

Handling The Academically Weaker Students

The announcement of the setting up of the two new specialised Normal (Technical)-only schools has set me thinking. Will this lead to further segregation of the top and bottom?

I tried to understand the reasons behind these specialsed schools. I spoke with several Normal (Technical) teachers and former students about the challenges of being in this stream. The teachers explain that there are only 1 or 2 Normal (Technical) classes per level in a school. So there is little pooling of resources unlike in the Express stream where there can be 4 to 6 classes per level. So when it comes to setting examination papers, the Normal (Technical) teacher has to set them, while in the Express stream, teachers can take turn to set the papers. With the specialised schools, this wouldn’t be a problem.

There can also be facilities to focus on the technical nature of the courses in the specialised schools otherwise not available to regular schools. A teacher told me that some schools are not even able to offer the Design & Technology subject for Normal (Technical) students due to insufficient teachers and lack of workshops. Some Normal (Technical) students may be interested or gifted in performing or visual art but the school does not have the facilities nor expertise to cater to the students. While I do not have details of the programmes that will run in the specialised schools, it may now be possible for these schools to offer specialty courses.

This sounds logical and good. I feel the downside will be the congregation of all the students with weaker abilites. There is the lack of role models for the students to look to. There will not be higher academic scoring students in the school for the lower scoring students to aspire to emulate or compete against. Will there be strong negative influence if some are involved in gangs or are not motivated to study? Will these specialised schools suffer from negative labeling by the public?

Some of the students come from challenging family backgrounds and some are involved in gangs as early as in primary schools. An entire gang may now move from the primary school into the same secondary school, which may create challenges to the management.

Northlight school has been cited as an example of how putting low academic ability students together had helped. I have had the privilege of visiting Northlight several times since its formation. I had also interacted with its students through running a short programme there once, and another time with Assumption Pathway school. I saw two types of students in these schools; one with genuine learning disability and another who may be bright but lacked motivation to study due to family background, gangs or other reasons.

From my viewpoint as an observer, I consider Northlight to be a success. I saw cases of genuine turnaround for some of the challenging students. In my opinion, Northlight succeeded for two main reasons (there may be other reasons).

Firstly, I saw it had a motivated and nurturing team. Teachers opted to be transferred to the school knowing full well the challenges they will face. There were more teachers wanting to teach at Northlight than there were vacancies. They had to be interviewed to be selected to teach there. It was the first school of its kind then for those who have repeatedly failed PSLE. That motivated teachers who genuinely wanted to change lives. The founding principal, Mrs Chua Yen Ching had a proven record of nurturing students from challenging backgrounds.

Secondly, Northlight started on a clean sheet, unencumbered by expectations of academic passes, existing curriculum, etc. These students had repeatedly failed PSLE. They could not enter any secondary school. The only road for them then was out in the streets. The school could plan the curriculum they felt was appropriate for the students. There were no suitable textbooks to use. Teachers had to develop suitable teaching and learning materials from scratch. The curriculum was tailored to fit the students, instead of rigid alignment to the standard curriculum in mainstream schools

It is not easy to repeat Northlight when you start to replicate with several more specialised Normal (Technical) schools. When we start to expand schools at the lower academic ability levels, it is not easy to find enough principals as well as motivated teachers with the required virtues and calibre for the betterment of these type of students. There will be pressure on the specialised schools to show that they can deliver better academc performance than that achieved by Normal (Technical) students in regular schools. Unlike in Northlight, these specialised schools will follow a national curriculum where there will be academic examinations at the end of 4 years of study. I fear competitive benchmarking may turn these schools to become too results oriented.

I spoke with a friend who was a former Normal (Technical) student. He eventually graduated from the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. I was intrigued by what turned him around. He was expelled from school at secondary three for behavioural issues. A nurturing teacher counselled him and arranged for him to enter another secondary school. Spurred by the teacher, he found his determination and motivation to study hard, and made it through university. I wonder how many gems like my friend we had lost in our eagerness to filter children according to their abilities. By labeling them early in their lives when some were not ready for examinations, we may have lost some of them for good.

Teachers do make big differences in students’ life. In specialised schools, we will need many teachers like that one that transformed my friend’s life. I hope in meeting performance indicators in the specialised schools, teachers will not forget to nurture the students to grow their self-confidence and create in them the motivation to do well. I hope these specialised schools will be given lots of autonomy like in Northlight to design their own curriculum and execution, and even through train directly to ITEs and polytechnics. This will enable these schools to focus on devloping students rather than to meet examination performance indicators.

Are There Alternatives To The Current Normal (Technical) Scheme Of Things?

I wonder if we can find a way for Normal (Technical) students to continue to be in regular schools, allowing integration of these students with those in the Express and Normal (Academic) stream.

If we do not have specialised schools, then what can we do to improve the situation of Normal (Technical) at regular schools? That was my concern when I posted a supplementary question to Minister of State Lawrence Wong in parliament recently on this issue.

I think the issue of resources can be partly solved by working the existing schools cluster system. There are currently 28 clusters, with 10-15 schools in a cluster, each supervised by a cluster superintendent. While schools do currently have some form of collaboration within a cluster, I found that it is rare, if at all, for schools to set common examination papers. It is also uncommon for students to go to another school to use specalised resources or facilities. How much collaboration takes place within a cluster is left to the schools to decide, and I feel collaboration can be deeper. If regular schools continue to run Normal (Technical) classes, there could be more enforced sharing of resources, including having common examination papers. There could even be sharing of programmes so that courses requiring specialised facilities or teachers can be centralised in one school. Under the current setup, is difficult to expect schools or even the cluster superintendent to initiate this on their own. If this is important, a stronger push by MOE has to take place to make more sharing happen.

Assuming we can plan on a clean sheet, we may then ask if there are alternatives for weaker students other than separating them into the Normal (Technical) stream? Students who are less academically inclined may do better with a modular system, including having examinations done at modular level rather than having high stake examinations. Perhaps we can re-look at the entire approach to see if we still need Normal (Technical), or if we can integrate these students into the Normal (Academic) stream. We would then need to find a way to deal with slower learners, just like what Finnish teachers have to do with weaker students. Besides core subjects, perhaps students can choose electives within the stream and have examinations on a modular basis, like how polytechnics and ITE conduct assessments on students. There can also be some elective modules that are more hands-on in nature or can include performing and visual arts.

Through-Train From Primary to Secondary, Anyone?

Another radical thought is that we may wish to explore an experimental school in which students progress from primary school till secondary 4, skipping the PSLE. Some students mature later, and may not be able to cope with high-stake examination stress at a young age. Not all parents are competitive and wish to have their children go through PSLE for streaming into top schools. Having 10 years of education before the first major examination will also allow the school to try out innovation curriculum without the stresses of preparing students for PSLE.

There are currently government aided schools which already have priority for graduating students to enter into the affiliated secondary school. Some of these aided schools have strong character and values education programmes, being linked with religious organisations or ethnic groups. Some have long operating history with strong school boards and staff. They can have a stronger hand in designing their curriculum at the primary and lower secondary level before focusing students for the O levels.

While this may seem unconventional, many private schools locally and overseas already through-train students from primary to secondary. At the secondary level, students are then prepared for the iGCSE or the IB examinations. Some of these schools do well at international examinations. I had the opportunity to observe the operations of some of these schools.

Finland has a system that progresses a student through from primary to secondary in the same school, and at a much larger national level. It does not have any national examinations. All schools in Finland are equally resourced. Importantly, students are not segregated into different types of schools by academic scores. Even within a school, higher and lower ability students are in the same class. It does take a greater level of skill and planning for teachers to handle such classes, but the task is possible.

I feel such a system deserves deeper thoughts. It will not be easy to immediately implement such a system in Singapore. Perhaps we can start with just one school that is willing to go into such a system. I feel that aided schools are strong candidate for this, if they so wish to. It will also take parents acceptance. I believe there will be sufficient number of parents who will want such a system. I would, if I could.

Towards A More Egalitarian System

If I seemed obsessed with the Finnish system, it is because I am intrigued by how an egalitarian system has worked. The specialised Normal (Technical) schools and the increased number of Integrated Programme schools may just be another gradual step that we have unconsciously taken towards a path of greater elitism in our system.

What is the purpose of education? I believe we want the best out of all our children. Our system has become increasing complicated and focuses a lot on the dichotomy of students. Why has it become so?

Each child has his / her unique talents and abilities. How can a system bring strengths out rather than highlight the child’s weaknesses?

Hence, I believe there must be lessons we can pick up from the Finnish system to see how we can better cater to those who are weaker. I like the Finnish philosophy of not labelling those who are weaker so that they will not feel they are ‘no-good’. It gets the student to say confidently, “I, not stupid” (小孩不笨). Yet, Finland’s system did not seem to disadvantage the stronger ability students as well.

A Normal (Technical) teacher shared with pride how one of his student displayed good leadership skills and made it to become vice president of the school’s students council. It gave the student and his peers tremendous pride to demonstrate that those weaker in academic abilities can exhibit strengths in other areas to compete with those perceived as stronger. If we separate these students from the high academic ability ones, this Normal (Technical) student leader will not have the chance to prove himself against the best.

In fact, I believe that stronger ability students can even learn better by mixing with the lower ability ones, as diversity can make the system stronger. The stronger ability students can learn by helping those who are weaker. They may be strong academically, but I am sure there can be other things the weaker academic ability students can teach them. Those who are weaker academically may exhibit abilities in other areas. It makes for better integration, and I believe it can lead to a more caring and cohesive society in future.

It will require deep thinking and research to see how this can work in Singapore’s context. I believe it will be an important exercise to consciously explore a more egalitarian system which yet will not disadvantage the able.

Parents’ role in educating children

yeejj ♦ November 10, 2011 ♦ 8 Comments

 Two articles caught my attention in today’s newspapers. The first is a ST special report on page B6, “Creating a conducive learning environment”. It talked about how neighbourhood schools have also created their own niches of learning and are also well resourced to be good schools. The second is “Teachers, don’t leave the kids alone” on TODAY which reported on Dr Tan Lai Yong’s speech at the inaugural Character and Citizenship Conference. Dr Tan spoke about the important role parents play in their children’s development. He urged parents to look beyond studying to also spend time with children at play.

Each year, we see many parents up-in-arms against MOE over primary 1 school admission, protesting over various criteria used for admission. There is no shortage of letters to forum pages of newspapers and online comments each year with differing opinions on what a fair criterion should be. We see parents stressed up over schools selection from the time their children were born. Some relocated their homes to be near choice schools. A year prior to primary 1 selection, parents would have to start to serve as volunteers to move to a higher priority for selection; and even so, there is no guarantee volunteer work will secure a place for the child in the desired school. Even getting to be a volunteer in a popular school is a challenge. Popular schools often turn away volunteers because they want to be fair to volunteers, as an oversupply of volunteers may mean more volunteers being disappointed if they have to ballot for the limited vacancies in the school. Indeed, I know of friends who had volunteered in vain due to unexpected high demand for places in the school from those higher up in the priority queue.

Being active in the schools industry for over a decade in various capacities, I had the chance to observe this annual ritual replayed many times in many schools. The process for my own three children was simpler. My wife and I decided to put them in our alma mater, which were also located within short distances from our house. One is an all-girls school and the other an all-boys school. The alumni priority did not matter anyway. The schools we chose did not have a queue, so it did not require priority to enter. It did not matter to us as well that these were not the much sought-after branded schools.

I believe parents play a bigger role in their children’s success than the school. No matter which school we select, there is no short-cut to the parents’ role in educating their children. Having worked with many schools, I find neighbourhood primary schools are not disadvantaged when it comes to physical resources. Each may have different facilities to cater to different niches, but basic and sufficient facilities are available in all schools.

The main difference between neighbourhood and branded primary schools is in the parents’ profile. Schools with higher proportions of middle and higher income families will tend to have more competitive parents. Most of these families spend a lot on tuition, so the better overall results of a school may not be due only to the school. Well-to-do parents impose tighter supervision and make additional resources available to their children outside of school. The differences in schools become more marked when it comes to secondary school due to streaming, when students are sorted out according to their academic abilities. The difference though, is less because of physical resources, but from the cohort of students the schools receive.

Parents should not think that getting their children into a popular primary school is the answer to their children doing well, nor should those that did not manage to land their children into popular schools despair. Parents hold an even more important role than schools in educating their children.

What is doing well in education? Is it all about examination results?

I share Dr Tan’s belief that there is more to learning than studying.  I have written and spoken previously about hyper-meritocracy, where we chase measurable academic indicators and rely on them to the extreme. It is unfortunate that over the years, we have gradually transformed our education system into one that seems overly concerned about sorting out students and identifying the top achievers in examinations, as if that is the only thing that matters. We find ways to sort out students at various intervals, from as young as nine years old. We provide top scholarships and top jobs for those that do well academically as proof of our meritocracy. This has led parents to over-emphasize academic results, leading to a highly stressed situation over schooling.

While academic results are important in our society, parents should not ignore opportunities to provide guidance in life skills to their children. Dr Tan raised his two children through their early studying years in mountainous rural Yunnan in China, returning only when this children are into their secondary school years. It is interesting that a Singapore-trained medical doctor would let his children live and study in a rural place without the advantages of ‘good’ Singapore schools. I believe there are must be valuable life lessons his children have learnt that cannot be taught in schools. I think these life lessons are as valuable as academic achievements.

I hope parents can see that educating their children is very much in their hands. Education includes examinations, which are necessary for the child to move on to a further stage. Education also means character and values development. While schools play an important role in character and values development through CCAs and through teachable moments in school, parents must see they have an even greater vested interests in ensuring their children grow up with the right attributes in life. Children are only in school for a few brief years but they are with their parents through life.

Values such as respect, courage, resilience, integrity, diligence, adaptability, discipline, independence are important for your children as they go through life. Parents are in the best position to impart these values to their children. Invest your moments with your children. Invest your time in their studies. Even more so, invest in their character development as well.

The journey to develop character and values in students

yeejj ♦ November 9, 2011 ♦ 9 Comments

 There has been much talk recently about Character and Values-based education after it was first announced by new Education Minister Heng Swee Kiat. On Tuesday, a little more details were announced at the first Character and Citizenship Education Conference : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1164029/1/.html.

In Monday’s Straits Times, it was reported that schools will be brainstorming to look at how CCAs can be further harnessed to develop character (“Schools look at using CCAs to teach values”, ST Nov 7, 2011 Page A9).

CCAs are certainly good places to start in. I have fond memories of my school days when I started becoming active in ECAs (now called CCAs) from upper secondary and especially in junior college. Back then, schools did not strictly limit the number of ECAs we took. I had three formal ECAs and two informal ones in college.  I also took part in various competitions as well. It was through these activities that I developed self-confidence. I had gone through primary school and the early part of secondary school as a quiet person, conditioned to think I was in school only to prepare for examinations.

Looking back, my confidence in being able to take on new and varied challenges started with my ECAs. I learnt how to deal with responsibilities when these were entrusted upon me. Perhaps for this reason, I have been willing to contribute actively to my alma mater, serving in various capacities over the past 22 years because school was where I discovered myself.

I would like to see CCAs playing more important roles in schools. A problem I foresee is that school environment is no longer the same as before. I took six subjects at junior college (Four ‘A’ and two ‘AO’ level subjects) back in the 1980s. Today, top students are taking up to 13 Academic Units at the ‘A’ levels. I know of many schools who allow students only one CCA and a second CCA on exceptional grounds (e.g. becoming a student councillor). Being active in the schools scene in various capacities, I have sat through award presentation ceremonies at many top schools over the past 11 years. I have seen the number of subjects being offered by top students rising. I hear of schools pushing top students to take more subjects to stand better chances of winning scholarships.

CCAs are often for winning awards, not for participation. I know of schools that have dropped popular CCAs because they cannot win awards or competitions at inter-schools or national levels. I had written on this to ST Forum before (Change This Attitude – School sports is about winning, not passion ).

I spoke about hyper-meritocracy in my maiden parliament speech. The education reforms started by the late Dr Goh Keng Swee in the 1970s has been good and necessary for their times. However, we have increasingly stretched the academic reforms to tighten the pressure on schools and on parents to churn out elite academic performers, as if it is the only thing that matters in life. In our eagerness to measure results, we count awards won, forgetting what CCAs can do for the learning process. We rank schools by academic performances to push for measurable results. Schools feel pressured to deliver hard academic numbers and can end up drilling students for examinations rather than educating them. Schools will tend to fine-tune their offering of CCAs, not based on students’ interest but based on expected performance at competitions. We had the “Teach Less, Learn More” initiative promoted even by the Prime Minister, but its effects have been muted under this hyper-meritocratic environment.

Eminent education thinker, Sir Ken Robinson spoke of having an agricultural approach to education rather than manufacturing. He urged educationists to take a more nurturing and less structured approach. With a manufacturing mindset, we assume a linear path, promote conformity and batch people together. With an agricultural mindset, the process is more organic and harder to predict. We provide all the ingredients and right environment and let each plant develop itself. The outcome is not always easy to predict. In his book, The Element, Sir Ken Robinson also spoke about how people began to excel when they found their passion in various areas.

For character and values education to work, whether through CCAs or through incorporating into other subjects, we must take a long and hard look at how we have shaped our educaton system into the highly stressed and elitist current state. It will be useful to reflect if we have become too examination-centric and awards-conscious because of the need to measure results so precisely. As long as we continue to measure schools the same way we have done so in the past, I am not certain if much will change.

Some areas I like MOE to look into are:

1. Allow a greater variety of CCAs in schools, even those CCAs that schools cannot win at the highest level. Provide the budget to support this as schools often say they limit the CCAs offered to those they can win awards in because of limited budget to offer more CCAs. Create more sports competitions at the school level and other forms of competitions and events not at the highly competitive levels. These will allow students to experience teamwork and the joy and agony of victories and defeats.

2. Review the examination culture. Perhaps a good place to start will be at the ‘A’ levels, since most of the top 10% of each cohort would soon be on the integrated programme system, bypassing the ‘O’ levels. Is it necessary to push students to take so many subjects? Would it not be better to let students take more CCAs if they wish to, instead of more Academic Units? We need to ask why more subjects have become necessary. Is it to feed into a competitive scholarship system? If so, should we review our scholarship culture and criteria for award of scholarships?

We also need to help students and parents understand there is more than one way to succeed in life. I had written to ST Forum to applaud Raffles Institution student Stefanie Tan quitting school to focus on playing tennis professionally. We can review the schools culture and government culture to encourage different ways for people to find their passion and succeed.

3. Broaden scope of education. I like to see a broader based education that increases the breadth of learning. Subjects that are more ambiguous and subjective, such as literature and history should not be avoided by schools for fear of pulling down overall grades. Such subjects also lend themselves better to incorporating in character and values compared to hard sciences. I recall being moved by my literature book, “To Kill A Mockingbird” and learning about the wicked ways of the world through “Animal Farm” and “Great Expectations”. Stories to learn values can also be incorporated into language lessons from a young age, and teachers equipped to deal with the issues covered.

In my parliament speech, I had also suggested incorporating political education from secondary school. I was referring to understanding our constitution, about role of the president office and about other essential aspects of our democracy. We need to embrace ambiguity in the 21st century because we will face an increasingly uncertain world. Values education can also be incorporated into political education as we help students understand and appreciate diversity in views.

4. Review the teacher-student ratio.  While this has been reduced to 30 in a class for primary 1 and 2 classes, it is still 40 or more students per class from primary 3 to secondary 5. Teachers often find themselves spending a lot of time controlling the class rather than teaching. With large class sizes, it is difficult for teachers to spend more time with individuals to work on imparting values. Having dedicated mentoring time where form teachers can be one-to-one or in smaller group settings with students will also be useful. However, with current administration workload and large class sizes, this is difficult to achieve. 

5.Review the way we measure and rate schools. Currently, the schools appraisal exercise is rather onerous and time consuming. The way schools are ranked and the type of information published of schools have a bearing on how they behave. I understand a review is underway to simplify schools appraisal, and I hope it can result in positive changes for a more conducive and nurturing environment. We should find ways to reduce unhealthy stress for both students and teachers so we can channel the energies towards creating positive platforms for Character and Values-based education.

I support Character and Values-based education. We need people of good character and strong resilience to steer us in this new millennium. We need strong values to guide us in an ambiguous and constantly changing new world order. I hope to see the education environment being changed to ensure these can be properly realised.