Senior Minister of State for Education, Grace Fu, says that beyond what
schools provide, some parents choose to provide their children more
support through tuition.
This, she added, is a choice for parents to make.
Ms Fu told parliament that they y would need to assess whether this will
overburden the child and whether the child would benefit more by
spending the time in other ways, such as reading or exercising.
While some students find private tuition helpful, it could lead to undue stress and underperformance for others.
There are also many students who succeed without tuition, by paying
attention in class, consulting teachers and working consistently
throughout the year.
-- 938Live
I think tutition used to be a choice. Nowadays, it's necessary otherwise the student cannot even stay average. This Grace Fu a fool or what? Time to speak like someone connected to the ground.
I think tutition used to be a choice. Nowadays, it's necessary otherwise the student cannot even stay average. This Grace Fu a fool or what? Time to speak like someone connected to the ground.
let's start by making sure schools don't call students back during sch holidays for supplementary classes....
Chee Soon Juan's SDP proposes an alternative Education policy for Singapore :
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/4431-sdp-proposes-alternative-education-policy
Singapore’s educational system has always been geared towards producing talent for a particular industry the government considers important at that material time. Today it may be the computer industry, tomorrow life sciences.
In 2001, the education minister related that this was because the government had to prepare Singaporeans to ride the “next wave in scientific and technological innovations."
This utilitarian approach continues through to the university level. Top students at the National University of Singapore will now be enrolled in a special curriculum where they will be trained "for the new economy."
In short, the PAP’s education policy is a massive effort to teach students what to think, not how to think. It reduces students to digits to be trained, not minds to be expanded.
Professor Roger Schank, director of the Institute of Learning Sciences in Northwestern University said of Singapore’s education system: "You don’t have a great education. Your sense of a well-educated man is someone who has memorised all the facts."
Also, there is a socio-economic divide in our school system where the haves and have-nots experience drastically learning environments which lead to very different outcomes in academic success.
These and many other shortcomings in our educational system need urgent reform, measures which are proposed below:
SDP's solutions
It is important that we teach our children that reading and learning can be enjoyable and intrinsically rewarding. To achieve this we must:
Rethink our educational philosophy. Learning should be made an enjoyable activity where discovery of oneself and one's aptitude is given priority instead of making students perform an endless series of classroom tests.
The priority should be placed on the learner; it should not be decided by educators or, worse, the government. We need an enlightened educational system where we develop a well-rounded curriculum, emphasizing on foundational knowledge, creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving.
Reduce class size. Presently, the number of students per class remains at around 40. Such a large number of pupils per class means that each student receives less attention. The SDP proposes that the teacher-student ratio for each class be 1:20.
This not only allows teachers to spend more time per student but it also means less marking and administrative duties for our educators, freeing them up for more interactive time with students.
Increase funding for neighbourhood schools. Data from the Ministry of Education suggests that educational achievement of students is correlated to economic status of families. Neighbourhood schools are often attended by students from lower-income families and students there have poorer academic performances that the elite schools.
More financial resources should, therefore, be given to neighbourhood schools to enable them to employ more and better-trained educators, as well as build better facilities to improve their standard of teaching.
Reduce content and rote-learning. The classroom syllabi are too much to fit into school hours. This causes teachers to dump the material on students regardless of whether the students understand what they are being taught or not. Seeing their children unable to cope with their schoolwork, parents are forced to put their students through private tuition classes. Reducing curriculum content will facilitate better learning and appreciation of the subjects taught.
The number of classroom examinations should also be reduced. In their place introducing more hands-on projects that emphasize discovery and creative thinking will cultivate a love for learning. Spelling lists should be reduced and replaced by games such as Hangman, Scrabble, Charade, etc. as forms of learning.
De-emphasize the PSLE, GCE examinations. Students do little else other than to cram for examinations. The sole objective is to "spot" questions so that they can regurgitate the content that they have memorised from 10-year-series model answers. All our students do is to become "exam smart". They do not master or appreciate the content that is taught in class.
Reduce the significance that is placed on such major examinations. Emphasize, instead, on continual assessments that enable educators to more accurately gauge the level of understanding of material taught as well as better assess the potential of students.
Introduce single-session schools. School hours should be limited to one session with the hours lengthened to eight hours a day, starting at 8 am and ending at 4 pm. The longer hours would allow non-teaching time where staff can supervise students on their homework as well as conduct extra-curricular activities.
Conclusion
Clearly, the PAP does not have a clear idea of what education is or should be besides defining it in terms of dollars and cents. Who is the educated Singaporean? What qualities would we like to see in our children? How should education serve the needs of Singapore over and beyond economic considerations? Why are Singaporeans not reading as much as their counterparts in other countries?
These are not esoteric questions. They are fundamental issues that are essential in the formulation of sound educational policies.
The situation on-the-ground hasn't changed. The majority of MOE teachers are still unhappy with MOE. If only MOE had been willing to take the opportunity (MOE HQ was made painfully aware of this matter) to offer more sincere steps to address teachers' concerns, the ruling party would have significantly more, not less, votes in the upcoming GE.
Note the overwhelming singular tone of the thousands of teachers' postings on this webpage :
http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/05/16/are-singapore-teachers-overworked/
First of all, did she know the syllabus at the school have changed so much that the kids are unable to cope ?
Why she and the rest of the croonies who suddenly become talk active and camera active in the house only recently ?
Where are they since 2006 ? Missing ?
How come there are so many pop corn solutions for the last two weeks ?
Is there no issues or problems since 2006 till now ?
These people should be pay by appearance instead of monthly pay as we only get to see them once every four year before the big event.
As the old man say, the system can run without him or the rest of the croonies.
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