Radical change to education proposed by wp

[Wind30]

 

The other political parties besides talking and growing fat... As well as drawing million dollar salaries,  what good are they. Show us the value.  Us as critical Singaporeans. 

 

Have a bit of honour and come out and declare their ability level. 

 

How many of them looks trim and fit? 

 

Nmp scheme indeed. 

 

errr.... isn't this the whole point of my thread? I really think that WP's suggestion on revamping PLSE is great and brilliant. 

 

Don't you think it will solve the problem for Primary school admissions and allows every Primary School to be a good school? I will allow more social mobility too

[Datsun366]

No.  Because it takes a whole lot of work.  PSLE or what takes its place is the first gate the future pm and roadsweeper comes in contact as first major academic test. 

Specialist team have to engineer it for projected use.  Does limpeh have that specialist team behind? 

 

By purposefully allowing lower achievements on national tests,  already got gaming the system flaw.  It's going to cause more problems in the future. 

 

When other people make a mistake it's effect is usually felt soon.  When educators make a mistake,  it's effect is usually huge and twenty years down the road. 

 

this nmp scheme... 

 

Solving social mobility is if education is taken as lifelong process.  Certain constructs have to be there to select those suitable for the powers that be.  Even now,  social mobility is determined by self. 

 

What I see the education system product is that even if 'cmi' here can be big guy elsewhere. 

 

Got some Sec 5 normal graduates doing 'well' in a recent Asean member country. 

 

They achieve there but not here.  Come back here with their achievements and 7 series. 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Datsun366

[Sosaria]

The proposal was not radical enough IMO.

 

I think more changes could be made to the present education system. For instance, our kids are spending too much time learning knowledge that can be easily googled online. Many scientific areas, including chemical, physics, and subjects such as geography, history, advance maths etc, are not really applicable even when these kids enter the workforce. If we need to know any of these knowledge, we can just go online to search for information and we will get the results in a few seconds. 

Do we really need to learn Pythagoras' theorem? Everyone just needs to know how to use their HP calculators - that's "mathematics" for me.

 

I acknowledge some kids may go into deeper specialisation, like medical science and law, etc. But why make all kids go through years and years of IMO useless knowledge that most will never use again?

 

My own proposal would be to scrap all those useless subjects, or combined all these into 1 "science" subject and not force the kids into an examination. Retain the language curriculum because English and Chinese are still both very relevant. Spend meaningful time on soft skills' development. Let the kids express themselves a bit more, and give them more time to interact with each other in or outside the classroom. Allow their creativity to grow and hopefully we will see more inventors and entrepreneurs in 30 years' time.   

 

I hope our esteemed Education Minister reads this post. Thanks.

 

Knowing some math especially the logic and the basic tools like some theorems are still very useful for fact-checking stuff that we read from the media and online.

 

In some articles or hearsay, very often numbers are quoted happily, graphs and charts and so on. Our kids need to equip with the thinking ability and math tools to discern fact from nonsense - and not just rely on the info source.

 

Just the other day, I heard an acquaintance quote wild figures that I knew were off the mark just by mentally doing some back-calculations with percentages. Totally improbable ... but this guy is happily repeating what he likely learned somewhere else with no questions asked.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Sosaria

[Victor68]

Not really. I think the theory is that for people who make it in their academics despite humble background, they grow to believe that everyone also can do it - that it just boils down to discipline and hard work.

 

So when others of similar backgrounds continue to languish in their studies, it's dismissed as their own fault, due to their unwillingness to work hard.

 

This is "elite" mindset, but of course, not to say it's entirely wrong. But should not over-generalize also. 

while i can agree with what you said, it is also our system they guided these people to this mindset. once you enter the express zone, everything is catered and thus you think that is norm. many of our generals are in the express lane since JC. 

[kdash]

The proposal was not radical enough IMO.

 

I think more changes could be made to the present education system. For instance, our kids are spending too much time learning knowledge that can be easily googled online. Many scientific areas, including chemical, physics, and subjects such as geography, history, advance maths etc, are not really applicable even when these kids enter the workforce. If we need to know any of these knowledge, we can just go online to search for information and we will get the results in a few seconds. 

Do we really need to learn Pythagoras' theorem? Everyone just needs to know how to use their HP calculators - that's "mathematics" for me.

 

I acknowledge some kids may go into deeper specialisation, like medical science and law, etc. But why make all kids go through years and years of IMO useless knowledge that most will never use again?

 

My own proposal would be to scrap all those useless subjects, or combined all these into 1 "science" subject and not force the kids into an examination. Retain the language curriculum because English and Chinese are still both very relevant. Spend meaningful time on soft skills' development. Let the kids express themselves a bit more, and give them more time to interact with each other in or outside the classroom. Allow their creativity to grow and hopefully we will see more inventors and entrepreneurs in 30 years' time.   

 

I hope our esteemed Education Minister reads this post. Thanks.

 

i would say education should be more holistic. although i agree on your suggestion of soft skills development and encouraging creativity, i beg to differ on the "useless" knowledge. having a broad knowledge base will stand us on good stead for our future growth and who is to say some of the info will not come in useful in future? also, no sec school kid will know for certain what they will do in future, eg. medicine or law. without a broad enough foundation, they would have narrower choices when they need to decide their course at the tertiary level. 

 

who is to say what knowledge is useful or useless without hindsight of what they will do in future. a person would be more well rounded and have a more balanced thought process if he/she has a broad knowledge of various disciplines. if one had not studied and learned some of the "useless" knowledge, he/she may not even know how to search for the relevant info on Google, and have the critical thinking skills to evaluate whether the google info makes sense or not. 

 

as an engineer, most of what i learnt in school may not be utilised actively in the workplace, but what i have are critical thinking and problem solving skills which were honed from trying to solve complex maths and engineering problems during my school years. 

 

i believe no knowledge is useless. 

 

your post did trigger me to think of what we can do to help our kids be more street-smart in the world today, either through education system or teaching/influence from parents and family. 

[DACH]

i would say education should be more holistic. although i agree on your suggestion of soft skills development and encouraging creativity, i beg to differ on the "useless" knowledge. having a broad knowledge base will stand us on good stead for our future growth and who is to say some of the info will not come in useful in future? also, no sec school kid will know for certain what they will do in future, eg. medicine or law. without a broad enough foundation, they would have narrower choices when they need to decide their course at the tertiary level. 

 

who is to say what knowledge is useful or useless without hindsight of what they will do in future. a person would be more well rounded and have a more balanced thought process if he/she has a broad knowledge of various disciplines. if one had not studied and learned some of the "useless" knowledge, he/she may not even know how to search for the relevant info on Google, and have the critical thinking skills to evaluate whether the google info makes sense or not. 

 

as an engineer, most of what i learnt in school may not be utilised actively in the workplace, but what i have are critical thinking and problem solving skills which were honed from trying to solve complex maths and engineering problems during my school years. 

 

i believe no knowledge is useless. 

 

your post did trigger me to think of what we can do to help our kids be more street-smart in the world today, either through education system or teaching/influence from parents and family. 

 

I think it's more about the relevance of that learning to the world today.

If that part of the knowledge is getting obsolete, probably it's time to remove it from the syllabus. 

It's good to learn more but is it good to make the children learn too much and giving them too much stress in learning too much? Although it is easier for them to learn while their brain is growing, but too much is also not good for them as they are unable to handle that stress.

The world is moving towards digitization and this is another knowledge that has to be squeezed into the syllabus.

In fact, there are already so many things that they have to learn in their 6 years primary and 4 years secondary school time frames that the syllabus has to be squeezed further, e.g. primary 6 syllabus are already teaching what the older generation are taught in the upper secondary.  

[Hamburger]

Was reading this thread and one thing came to my mind.

 

Pappy definition of governing in manytalkcockandsee

[Wind30]

The proposal was not radical enough IMO.

 

I think more changes could be made to the present education system. For instance, our kids are spending too much time learning knowledge that can be easily googled online. Many scientific areas, including chemical, physics, and subjects such as geography, history, advance maths etc, are not really applicable even when these kids enter the workforce. If we need to know any of these knowledge, we can just go online to search for information and we will get the results in a few seconds.

Do we really need to learn Pythagoras' theorem? Everyone just needs to know how to use their HP calculators - that's "mathematics" for me.

 

I acknowledge some kids may go into deeper specialisation, like medical science and law, etc. But why make all kids go through years and years of IMO useless knowledge that most will never use again?

 

My own proposal would be to scrap all those useless subjects, or combined all these into 1 "science" subject and not force the kids into an examination. Retain the language curriculum because English and Chinese are still both very relevant. Spend meaningful time on soft skills' development. Let the kids express themselves a bit more, and give them more time to interact with each other in or outside the classroom. Allow their creativity to grow and hopefully we will see more inventors and entrepreneurs in 30 years' time.

 

I hope our esteemed Education Minister reads this post. Thanks.

I don’t really understand.... I thought in secondary school you can choose streams...you don’t have to do more than 1 compulsory science subject. Your facts itself is already wrong I think.

 

Anyway funny u mentioned Pythagoras theorem... I use it all the time at my work summing up two uncorrelated random effects....

 

I think you can’t stop people from rote learning by memorizing... there is two ways to learn, one understanding why, the other just learning how and what. No matter what u teach, it’s up to the kid and parents to decide what path to take.

 

I do agree some subjects are memory intensive like geography or biology but knowledge I believe is always useful...

Edited May 19, 2018 by Wind30

[Aventador]

 

Random allocation within an estate does not hinder Meritocracy. Unless you think that not every school is a good school.

If you are clever, you will still rise up and be the best within the school you are assigned to.

 

It will solve the PSLE pressure issue, as that is the ultimate goal - to reduce pressure on our young kids

Let them fight it out when they are older, not at 12 yrs old

 

Within higher value estates like Bukit Timah, the cluster of Secondary Schools will have to include neighbourhood schools with no 'Brand", perhaps like commonwealth Secondary (just an example)

 

so no matter which estate you go to, you have equal chance to go to any school

 

eventually after a few batches - ALL schools will definitely be equal, and the problem will be solved

and parents will then concentrate on ensuring their kids improve to the best they can be, not on what PSLE T score they get

Nearly half of low-income students in Singapore are concentrated in the same schools, a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has highlighted.

 

The report, released yesterday, found that 46 per cent of disadvantaged students in Singapore were attending "disadvantaged schools" in 2015, up from 41 per cent in 2009.

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/nearly-half-of-low-income-students-in-singapore-attend-the-same-schools

Edited October 27, 2018 by Aventador