Letter to Heng Swee Keat
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BlueBells:
Wow, you are steady bom pi pi... I will freak out if my child ever fail any subjects for an exam because she would have PREPARED for all the exams. If she can fail, something is wrong, either physically unwell on that day or the exam is unrealistic :rant: . If one has prepared for an exam, at its worst case, it is a low score if it is tough, failing is unthinkable.
My P5 failed her CA1 Maths, passed her SA1, tuition for Maths ...? Err ..... not yet .... -
Singapore is a company - they want the world to know that we have the best products: For housing, we have the HDB product. And we are selling this product to China. For industrial development, we have the infamous Suzhou Industrial Park. For airport, we have a world-class airport package for sale. Likewise, for education, we churned out more exam smarties than other countries. We are about to package our education system for sale. Please, for goodness sake, say something positive and good. Else the stock price will come tumbling down.
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BlueBells:
come! better tuition quick, cannot wait liao!... My P5 failed her CA1 Maths, passed her SA1, tuition for Maths ...? Err ..... not yet ....
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Hi Chenonceau,
Know you are busy, but just want to check are you still going for the petition? -
Chenonceau:
Like you, seen from a personal perspective, I really have nothing to worry about but recently I am beginning to think along the above line ...Seen from a personal perspective, I really have nothing to worry about. The worry starts when I think beyond my personal situation. If my son fails exams because exams test what is not taught in class, then what about other people's children with equivalent intelligence but NO ONE to teach them at home?
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perhaps Hong Kong is worse than in Singapore ....
http://www.straitstimes.com
Published on May 30, 2011
Exam-obsessed Hong Kong makes celebrity tutors rich
HONG KONG - CUT-THROAT competition for exam success in Hong Kong's high-pressure education system has spawned a new breed of teacher - celebrity tutors with near cult-like status and millionaire lifestyles.
With their glamorous photographs showing megawatt grins and flashy attire splashed across billboards and buses, the star teachers claim to transform failing students into A-grade pupils - and earn up to US$1.5 million (S$1.85 million) a year.
The former British colony's tutoring industry is reportedly worth at least HK$400 million (S$63.4 million), with official figures showing as many as half of secondary school seniors seek private tutoring after school.
Hong Kong parents, often desperate to help their children succeed in the city's intense public-exam system, are more than willing to shell out handsome sums for extracurricular help.
'Hong Kong has a very examination-oriented school culture and tutoring is regarded as a kind of educational investment,' said Kelly Mok, an English tutor who teaches at King's Glory, one of the largest tutorial schools in Hong Kong. That focus on academic success at almost any cost has turned celebrity tutor Mr Richard Eng into a rich man who wheels around the teeming city in a Lamborghini, wears expensive watches and lives in a multi-million dollar mansion in the city's Yuen Long district.
'Enrolment in tutorial schools is astoundingly high - we are talking about 100,000 students every year,' Mr Eng told AFP. Mr Eng and other top tutors have successfully tapped that demand, using flashy, commercial marketing tactics to make themselves household names or academic superstars, otherwise known as 'tutor kings' in Cantonese. His empire, Beacon College, employs over 100 tutors and Eng plans to take the firm public. -- AFP
Copyright
2010 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_674159.html -
verykiasu2010:
Singapore going down the same path? Think already started? There are certain tutors more popular? There are also some branded tuotion centreperhaps Hong Kong is worse than in Singapore ....
http://www.straitstimes.com
Published on May 30, 2011
Exam-obsessed Hong Kong makes celebrity tutors rich
HONG KONG - CUT-THROAT competition for exam success in Hong Kong's high-pressure education system has spawned a new breed of teacher - celebrity tutors with near cult-like status and millionaire lifestyles.
With their glamorous photographs showing megawatt grins and flashy attire splashed across billboards and buses, the star teachers claim to transform failing students into A-grade pupils - and earn up to US$1.5 million (S$1.85 million) a year.
The former British colony's tutoring industry is reportedly worth at least HK$400 million (S$63.4 million), with official figures showing as many as half of secondary school seniors seek private tutoring after school.
Hong Kong parents, often desperate to help their children succeed in the city's intense public-exam system, are more than willing to shell out handsome sums for extracurricular help.
'Hong Kong has a very examination-oriented school culture and tutoring is regarded as a kind of educational investment,' said Kelly Mok, an English tutor who teaches at King's Glory, one of the largest tutorial schools in Hong Kong. That focus on academic success at almost any cost has turned celebrity tutor Mr Richard Eng into a rich man who wheels around the teeming city in a Lamborghini, wears expensive watches and lives in a multi-million dollar mansion in the city's Yuen Long district.
'Enrolment in tutorial schools is astoundingly high - we are talking about 100,000 students every year,' Mr Eng told AFP. Mr Eng and other top tutors have successfully tapped that demand, using flashy, commercial marketing tactics to make themselves household names or academic superstars, otherwise known as 'tutor kings' in Cantonese. His empire, Beacon College, employs over 100 tutors and Eng plans to take the firm public. -- AFP
Copyright 2010 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_674159.html -
My close friend was born a daughter of a push-cart street hawker and she married the son of a laundry woman. Guess where they are now? My friend is now a lawyer and her husband is a high ranking engineer in an MNC. Both commented that they would not be able to climb up this far in their education and career if they grew up in last 10 years.
They commented that the current education system that is reliant on parental coaching and private tuition is no longer a meritocratic system.
Meaning eventually, the country will not progress because the best person does not always get the job, because the job goes to the most well-connected person. -
The basic premise of meritocracy is that opportunities come to those who are able to demonstrate greater competency by some standardized measure, regardless of birth-rights or wealth.
If meritocracy is about being \"fair\", playing the devil's advocate, if we believe that access to tuition is key to a student's academic success, and we take action to provide or subsidize only students from poorer families to good tuition teachers, are we not discriminating against students from wealthier families?
In reality, meritocracy has nothing to do with \"fairness\" - it simply says that people should be hired based on their capability. Students, wealthy or not, will still have to sit for the same exams. Wealthier students may be able to spot more questions because of the additional access to resources - but they will still need to put in the necessary effort to learn the material. Poorer students may lack quality resources, but they will be hungrier and are more motivated to put in the extra effort to do better than their peers.
I feel that the real focus should be on the level of difficulty that students are being examined and tested against. The benchmark increases every year because educationists feel that this is how they can grow better \"crops\" each year. The question is whether the standard of education should be equated to that of economic growth. Unfortunately, this is the key limitation of meritocracy - because everyone knows their academic performance will determine the level of opportunities coming their way, everyone simply \"mug\" their way and become \"exam-smart\", which has nothing to do with actually appreciating or really understanding or learning the material. Students memorize prepared answers, and do 10-years series over and over again. That is the reason why the number of quality passes is always increasing, because of the abundance of such materials! In the same way, children can be trained to do well in the GEP tests just so they get into the classes. This completely warps the original publicly-stated intent of the GEP being a programme for special-needs and naturally gifted children. And why do parents want their children to be in GEP? Because of the Direct School Admission which gives priority to such children!
As long as meritocracy remains the cornerstone of compensation in Singapore, it will be impossible to reduce the level of stress that our young ones have to go through. It is really easy for non-parents to call us parents kiasu and other derogatory terms, and to blame us for creating stress in our children. In fact, it is the meritocracy that created this problem. The last thing we parents want is to scream and yell and learn Primary school material so that we can teach our children ourselves :faint: -
Well said, Chief! :goodpost:
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