Real reason behind Singapore’s obsession with tuition

[verykiasu2010]

wonderm:

And I have heard that tuition becomes necessary now because in some schools, teachers don't teach well. I am not disagreeing with this.

I also hear all these from this website, but no one is willing to even name the school. :frustrated: The good schools have been named, how about those that allegedly 'don't teach' ? how come no name huh ?

wonderm:

But on the other hand, do we see less tuition/enrichment classes for students from these top schools? maybe VS2010 can share your gut feel? no need hard statistics, just some gut feel?

My gut feels hungry, don't know what happened to the lunch I ate. :evil:

wonderm:

My own impression is that students from good schools do still go for additional tuition/enrichment. This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as the children enjoy the lessons and don't feel burnt out. Some say that will favour the rich because they can afford good enrichment lessons. Again, I don't disagree. Say we can ban tuition, then those whose parents have the time and ability to teach will still be at an advantage over the others?

u said it! I would add that it is a vicious circle - as long as PSLE is a national ranking exam and top sec school admission is by merit. this merry go round will continue. But this is meritocracy (骂你多该死)) loved by Sigaporeans, wat ?

wonderm:

On comparing schools to fast food chains, there are some good discussions here about constraints and the need to go beyond the constraints. Just another way of looking at it, when I expect minimum differences between burgers from different Mac branches, do we really want to \"produce\" exactly the same graduates (or 12-year olds) even if MOE has a way to do it? I will not want to see that, but that's just me. One may say we don't want to consider our dear chidlren as \"products\" of the education system, but we want to consider the teaching in different schools \"services\" delivered by the system and our children are just the \"customers\", then again education is such a unique service which doesn't just depend on the \"service provider\" but very much on the \"customers\" themselves. That brings me back a few page when people talked about students have different level of listening skills. Besides that concentration, motivation, ability to grasp new concepts will all play a part. Oops, sorry, I am drifting to constraints.... No wonder we are going in a loop.

Still, I think a lot of the points made here are good and valid, even though they seem to be conflicting at times. Maybe that's why it is not easy.

At the end of the day, I am glad human being / ability is subject to 'normal distribution'......

[cherryc]

Using fast food restaurant analogy, we now have substandard menus and insufficient Ingredients (textbooks) but some outlets within the chain with great manager and staffs (who do not need to do too many wayang things) still manage to provide good service, improve on the ingredients on their own Accord and able to give full portion of good quality food . Customers of these outlets will be satisfied not knowing others have been shortchanged . On the other side, other customers who go to another outlet, will face the full brunt of substandard or complicated ingredient to subsubstandard service and final substandard inadequate food. These customers are forced to pay additional to eat elsewhere on top of the ‘public’ food. And worst still , the customers are told " Eat less, Feel fuller" .


If the ingredients is fresh and sufficient, the service meets proper guidelines , the service staffs are in it to serve and not being overworked , I believe the final outcome will be more desirable . The 2 groups of customers have different experiences so can’t compare. What we ask for the master franchise is to look at the ingredients , service guidelines and the final products they deliver and why majority of customers have to eat elsewhere after eating their food to be full. Whether the customer is fat, thin , speed of eating can be taken into consideration but not the key issues here.

[wonderm]

verykiasu2010:

At the end of the day, I am glad human being / ability is subject to 'normal distribution'......

I am not sure if I like \"那么多死Tuition\"

[verykiasu2010]

cherryc:

Using fast food restaurant analogy, we now have substandard menus and insufficient Ingredients (textbooks) but some outlets within the chain with great manager and staffs (who do not need to do too many wayang things) still manage to provide good service, improve on the ingredients on their own Accord and able to give full portion of good quality food . Customers of these outlets will be satisfied not knowing others have been shortchanged . On the other side, other customers who go to another outlet, will face the full brunt of substandard or complicated ingredient to subsubstandard service and final substandard inadequate food. These customers are forced to pay additional to eat elsewhere on top of the 'public' food. And worst still , the customers are told \" Eat less, Feel fuller\" .


If the ingredients is fresh and sufficient, the service meets proper guidelines , the service staffs are in it to serve and not being overworked , I believe the final outcome will be more desirable . The 2 groups of customers have different experiences so can't compare. What we ask for the master franchise is to look at the ingredients , service guidelines and the final products they deliver and why majority of customers have to eat elsewhere after eating their food to be full. Whether the customer is fat, thin , speed of eating can be taken into consideration but not the key issues here.

we know the 'good' outlets

please tell us the no good ones to avoid

[verykiasu2010]

wonderm:

verykiasu2010:

At the end of the day, I am glad human being / ability is subject to 'normal distribution'......

I am not sure if I like \"那么多死Tuition\"

surely we don't like 那么多屎 tuition

[cherryc]

we know the ‘good’ outlets


please tell us the no good ones to avoid[/quote]

Er …u just answer yr own question …


Seriously , I’m talking abt improving ingredients , service guidelines, employ the right staffs , inspire the staffs etc no need to shame schools , right?

[verykiasu2010]

cherryc:

we know the 'good' outlets


please tell us the no good ones to avoid

Er ....u just answer yr own question ......


Seriously , I'm talking abt improving ingredients , service guidelines, employ the right staffs , inspire the staffs etc no need to shame schools , right?[/quote]

ok still need to know which outlets need more help mah

[limlim]

cherryc:

If the ingredients is fresh and sufficient, the service meets proper guidelines , the service staffs are in it to serve and not being overworked , I believe the final outcome will be more desirable . The 2 groups of customers have different experiences so can't compare. What we ask for the master franchise is to look at the ingredients , service guidelines and the final products they deliver and why majority of customers have to eat elsewhere after eating their food to be full. Whether the customer is fat, thin , speed of eating can be taken into consideration but not the key issues here.

if the cook from the hawker center is free to moonlight at the food court, and they draw fixed salary at the hawker center but variable income from the food court, depending on how many patrons visit their stalls, how can we ensure the quality of food served at hawker centers?

Will cooks be tempted to hide their secret recipes and winning formulas from hawker stall and use them at the food court to attract as many patrons as possible?

If the income at food court is significant, do they still have the heart to dish out good food at the hawker stall?

How to protect the interest of the hawker centers customers, or are they forced to pay exorbitant prices just to get satisfactory food at the food court?

Can the hawker stall management do something about it?

or continue to fuel the growth of the food court? at the expense of the interest of the hawker stall customers..

[Imami]

Chenonceau:

He is my son, I love him. I pit all my intelligence against a constraint and I moved it.


The assumption is not that there are no constraints but that we should try and examine the constraints and think outside the box that constrains us.

I want to envy you - to have the intelligence to pit yourself against the constraint and successfully moved it. My child will have a harder journey ahead because his mum may not have enough intelligence to help him.

[janet88]

cherryc:

These days, the schools (may be under MOE's direction) adopt \"creative teachings\". Students do a lot of 'wayang' in schools, eg, presentation, shifting of furnitures to form groups for discussion like they are university students, YOG support - no school, XYZ festival - no school, PSLE Oral-no school, anything happen-no school, e-learning-no school. Teach less + Learn more. All kinds of nonsense cause the lessons in schools to be very diluted. i.e. not the solid lessons we got 10-20 yrs ago. So, where/how to catch up? Tuition. Think MOE/teachers expect all pupils to go tuition.

I did a simple survey in my kid's school. Almost every kid has tuition. No joke. My kid is going to lose out because we cannot afford tuition. The lessons delivered in class are shabby and homework given minimum, how to expect kids to excel without tuition?

My finances are so tight this year...yet dare not go without tuition. With such minimal teaching, I do not have confidence in my son passing PSLE w/out external help. At least i know my son's math tutor has almost completed teaching the syllabus and can do in-depth revision.

MOE has made sitting for PSLE a 'kao3 zhuang4 yuan2' affair...a do or die thing. Is it necessary? Why are teachers able to do such a good job during our time? Why not now?