Real reason behind Singapore’s obsession with tuition
-
Singapore is mentioned in this Telegraph article yesterday :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/maths-reform/9338540/Numeracy-Campaign-What-we-can-learn-from-China.html
\"The way they teach mathematics in Singapore is brilliant – both in theory and in practice.\"
\"“In Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, our prime minister, left Cambridge with a First in maths.”
And someone has to add this comment to depict the stark reality:
Danielsadhu
i live in Singapore and am married to a Singaporean. My children went to a local Singapore school. Whilst I do agree that UK maths standards need improving at the primary school level, trying to follow the Asia methods like Singapore, China, etc, would be a disaster.
What your article fails to mention is the vast sums of money that Asian parents spend on tutoring especially on subjects like maths. Many kids in Asian schools including those in Singapore are being left behind and failing in subjects like maths. I wish people in the West would do better quality research and analysis to find out the real reason for the outperformance of Asian kids in subjects like maths. They always forget to mentioin the tutoring side.
The Asian education system is good at producing people who can take exams but these peoplel lack creativity, soft skiils, etc. -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/maths-reform/9338540/Numeracy-Campaign-What-we-can-learn-from-China.html
'Above all, it is a cultural thing.” Professor Lianghuo Fan is reflecting on the differences he has noticed between maths education in China and Singapore, where he lived and taught for 40 years, and in Britain, where he is now based. “In China, all parents know that maths is the number one subject in schools, and they expect that in a modern society everyone must be comfortable with maths, even if that means they have to work hard at it.
“That attitude is passed on to their children. But here in Britain, you can feel students’ attitude about mathematics is different. They feel all right if they say they don’t like mathematics.”
Professor Fan is not alone in highlighting this national phobia of ours about maths. The government has this week shown itself determined to tackle the problem head on with the unveiling of a new “back-to-basics” primary school maths curriculum, with a renewed emphasis on times-tables, mental arithmetic, fractions and rote learning.
Most people over 40 will see the proposals as a return to the classroom practice of their childhood – but in its introductory remarks the Department for Education claimed inspiration from Asian model that Professor Fan knows so well: “I never heard a child in China or Singapore say that they don’t like maths’,” he stresses, “without a sense of embarrassment.”
We are sitting in a café near Southampton University – where 50-year-old Professor Fan has been head of the Mathematics and Science Education Research Centre since 2010 – as we try to decide if anything lies behind the popular stereotype that Asian children are “naturally” better at maths than those in the West. It is, for example, in the core storyline of Safe, the recent Hollywood blockbuster, starring Jason Statham. An 11-year-old girl, Mei (played by Chinese-born actress Catherine Chan), is a maths prodigy who can decode number sequences at a glance – and therefore has to be protected from the baddies.
RELATED ARTICLES
City & Guilds CEO: Maths education needs overhaul 18 Jun 2012
Marcus du Sautoy on maths 09 Jun 2012
Google head supports Telegraph campaign 24 May 2012
Make Britain Count: Multiply those maths qualifications 30 Apr 2012
Make Britain Count: Marcus du Sautoy joins our campaign 01 Jun 2012
If anyone should know the truth about such generalisations, it is Professor Fan, who grew up near Shanghai and was so good at maths that he was sent off to university at 15. After a spell as a maths teacher, and then as a trainer of maths teachers, he did further research at Chicago University before joining the internationally respected National Institute of Education in Singapore in 1998.
He had thought that he was settled there with his family – he has two teenage daughters – when the offer came from Southampton. Why accept when, as The Daily Telegraph’s Make Britain Count campaign has been exploring, there are so many challenges around improving our national performance at maths?
He laughs. “I’d been looking at the British system for teaching maths since I was doing my Masters back in the early Eighties and had to translate a major report by Dr Cockcroft called 'Mathematics Counts’. So it was familiar. And, while it has great strengths as well as weaknesses, the British system is seen as a benchmark for comparisons internationally.”
It feels odd that he is extolling the virtues of our way of doing things, because most of the traffic seems to be heading in the opposite direction. On the question of suitable role models for improving the teaching of maths, British ministers and educationalists say two words with rare unanimity: “look East”.
That, for example, was the message of a Royal Society of Arts report, “Solving the Maths Problem”, published earlier this year. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in its annual survey of global educational standards in 70 industrialised countries, places 15 year-olds in Shanghai’s schools way out in front of all the rest in maths skills, with Singapore second, and Britain 28th.
So what is their secret? “Children study maths as a compulsory subject to 17 or 18,” says Professor Fan. There is a particular emphasis on the subject, and the compulsion that Mr Gove would like to see introduced to ensure all 16- to 18-year-olds continue with their maths here.
There are different maths modules for older secondary school pupils, too, Professor Fan explains, in both Singapore and China. So some take maths courses designed to lead on to scientific subjects at university, and others opt instead for maths options geared to students keener on the arts, history or geography. “There are very, very, few exceptions made in Chinese schools,” he adds. “Perhaps a few students who want to study drama. Otherwise everyone does maths.”
Among other factors he highlights is quality of teaching. “Everyone who teaches maths in China is what is called a 'subject-specific teacher’. So when I was in the classroom, I only taught maths.” The same is true of Singapore’s secondary schools. But in Britain, fewer than five per cent of primary teachers have maths degrees, and an estimated 30-40 per cent of GCSE maths lessons are taken by teachers with qualifications in other subjects.
It is not just the teachers’ knowledge that counts, Professor Fan says. In China and Singapore, “They do a lot of professional development. It is locked into the timetable every week. Here, it seems to be less systematic. And teachers in Britain are sometimes afraid of their pupils being bored by maths. Of course, you have to make maths interesting, but that should come once pupils feel comfortable with the subject, once they have developed fundamental skills.”
The practice-makes-perfect philosophy underpins the maths textbooks used in Asian schools, some of them edited by Professor Fan himself. Isn’t there a danger, though, of children feeling too regimented? In its report, the OECD was full of praise for levels of achievement in maths in China, but did put a question mark next to the “intense examination and test” culture there. It quoted Xu Jilin, a professor of history at East China Normal University, whose son is at a Shanghai middle school. “This rigid examination system has created an exam-oriented education from the kindergarten,” he wrote, “a destruction of talent and waste of youth. Doing exercises every day is like practising gymnastics, repeating the same moves every day, hundreds of times, to make sure no errors are made during the exam.”
Professor Fan disagrees. “If by regimented, you mean children listen to their teachers, pay attention, that the teacher doesn’t have to waste time on discipline, then yes, it is regimented. But do they have less able pupils, or pupils with social problems? Of course they do. That can’t get in the way of learning. That is the culture.”
Back to that word again. Dr Martin Stephen, until 2011 High Master of St Paul’s in London, one of Britain’s top-performing private schools, has just spent 18 months travelling the world looking at different education systems, including those in the Far East.
“The way they teach mathematics in Singapore is brilliant – both in theory and in practice. They get the results we want to achieve, but when you examine how they do it, it is nothing new, nothing we didn’t use to do until the Sixties. Out there I saw good teachers using traditional methods that include rote learning – not a phrase you even hear in British classrooms today.”
And the classroom culture, Dr Stephen says, reflects a wider attitude in Asian societies. “There is respect for learning, and especially for maths. With that respect come rewards for teachers and respect from pupils they have to teach. You can almost see them taking their work more seriously as a result.”
So can we change the culture around maths here? “In many schools I have seen in Britain,” suggests Professor Fan, “there is good practice in maths; but in others there isn’t that culture of expectation.
“In Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, our prime minister, left Cambridge with a First in maths.” Compare that with our own recent crop of law, history and PPE graduates at 10 Downing Street: Professor Fan may just be on to something. -
verykiasu2010:
In Singapore primary schools, the MOE policy is that Teachers have to teach EMS.
Among other factors he highlights is quality of teaching. “Everyone who teaches maths in China is what is called a 'subject-specific teacher’.verykiasu2010:
This is a factual inaccuracy where it concerns Singapore Math textbooks.The practice-makes-perfect philosophy underpins the maths textbooks used in Asian schools, some of them edited by Professor Fan himself.
And yes... there no mention of Kumon, Abacus, Learning Lab... who help many kids like and ace Math. This said, we do have a better attitude toward Math than in the West. People who are good in Math are considered intelligent. Those like me, who are awful at Math, have always been viewed as a bit dumb. I've always been made to feel embarrassed and ashamed because I can't count well. -
Chenonceau:
just how many kids attend Kumon, Abacus, TLL etc out of the 240,000 to 250,000 pri school kids ?
This is a factual inaccuracy where it concerns Singapore Math textbooks.
And yes... there no mention of Kumon, Abacus, Learning Lab... who help many kids like and ace Math. This said, we do have a better attitude toward Math than in the West. People who are good in Math are considered intelligent. Those like me, who are awful at Math, have always been viewed as a bit dumb. I've always been made to feel embarrassed and ashamed because I can't count well. -
verykiasu2010:
How many Kumon centres are there? How much fees to keep a centre profitable after deducting franchise fees and other costs? How prosperous are Kumon centre owners?
just how many kids attend Kumon, Abacus, TLL etc out of the 240,000 to 250,000 pri school kids ?Chenonceau:
This is a factual inaccuracy where it concerns Singapore Math textbooks.
And yes... there no mention of Kumon, Abacus, Learning Lab... who help many kids like and ace Math. This said, we do have a better attitude toward Math than in the West. People who are good in Math are considered intelligent. Those like me, who are awful at Math, have always been viewed as a bit dumb. I've always been made to feel embarrassed and ashamed because I can't count well.
I know 2 Kumon centre owners. They earn enough that their husbands quit jobs to help out at the centre... enough to buy properties... and yachts. Both also tell me that schools don't teach enough... nor do schools give enough practices. Maybe your school does... and no one there goes to Kumon. Then again, one might say that the 2 Kumon Principals want my business... There is always an excuse to make a bad situation look halfway good.
At the end of the day, we don't know do we? I've said before. Parents who have great experiences with education will never buy into my perspective. But parents who don't have great experiences don't need to read my perspective to think like me.
Eventually, we won't know till the next elections. -
Chenonceau:
How many Kumon centres are there? How much fees to keep a centre profitable after deducting franchise fees and other costs? How prosperous are Kumon centre owners?
just how many kids attend Kumon, Abacus, TLL etc out of the 240,000 to 250,000 pri school kids ?verykiasu2010:
[quote=\"Chenonceau\"]
This is a factual inaccuracy where it concerns Singapore Math textbooks.
And yes... there no mention of Kumon, Abacus, Learning Lab... who help many kids like and ace Math. This said, we do have a better attitude toward Math than in the West. People who are good in Math are considered intelligent. Those like me, who are awful at Math, have always been viewed as a bit dumb. I've always been made to feel embarrassed and ashamed because I can't count well.
I know 2 Kumon centre owners. They earn enough that their husbands quit jobs to help out at the centre... enough to buy properties... and yachts. Both also tell me that schools don't teach enough... nor do schools give enough practices. Maybe your school does... and no one there goes to Kumon.[/quote]my kids' cousins attended Kumon and found them hopeless and useless. of course they quit. -
verykiasu2010:
If so hopeless... then the franchise won't make money enough to fund yachts and such. I guess the business turnover speaks for itself despite the view of your nieces/nephews. I also know people who don't like Kumon but well... what do their profit-loss reports say?
my kids' cousins attended Kumon and found them hopeless and useless. of course they quit.
This is not counting those who buy Kumon worksheets to do at home because textbooks don't give enough practice. -
Before I get shot to bits. I declare first, I am not saying there is nothing wrong with the education system in Singapore but just need to understand certain things that I keep reading.
There have been many posts that say tutors and enrichment centres are the ones teaching, not the schools. I find that improbable. How is it that a tutor can cover the entire syllabus within that 2hrs once a week while the school with 5 days and min of 45mins each session is doing such a dismal job.
I am in the midst of switching my kids from TienHsia to private tuition for chinese. To me, it is not because the school is not doing its job teaching, but due to our family’s lack of Chinese proficiency, we are unable to guide our kids. As they have very limited exposure to the language, they need to revise but left on their own, we as parents and they, our kids have no idea where to begin and hence the tutor to facilitate their revision and focus on areas in which they are weak. Are they failing? No, but I do not want to wait and see, for base on experience, I know how hard it is to play catch up and how easy it is to hate a subject and totally give up on it.
So while we have our frustrations with the school system, we need to balance our perspective, no? Give credit where it is due and not over credit where it is not due. -
I'm trying to understand.
What sort of practice qns are not enough in maths textbks?
Whatever sort of qns or areas that my dd1 is weak in, I just write out similar qns for her to practice. I just change the names of the characters and qty hor, nothing complicated. Oh I hate maths, don't understand models, heuristics, and don't see the point of IQ like qns for P1 :rotflmao: -
Funz:
Did you expect me to shoot you? Gee... I am a bit perturbed if you do. As I recall, I jut lay down the logic and argumentation clearly. Apologies to all if I intimidate. I don't mean to.Before I get shot to bits. I declare first, I am not saying there is nothing wrong with the education system in Singapore but just need to understand certain things that I keep reading.
There have been many posts that say tutors and enrichment centres are the ones teaching, not the schools. I find that improbable. How is it that a tutor can cover the entire syllabus within that 2hrs once a week while the school with 5 days and min of 45mins each session is doing such a dismal job.
I am in the midst of switching my kids from TienHsia to private tuition for chinese. To me, it is not because the school is not doing its job teaching, but due to our family's lack of Chinese proficiency, we are unable to guide our kids. As they have very limited exposure to the language, they need to revise but left on their own, we as parents and they, our kids have no idea where to begin and hence the tutor to facilitate their revision and focus on areas in which they are weak. Are they failing? No, but I do not want to wait and see, for base on experience, I know how hard it is to play catch up and how easy it is to hate a subject and totally give up on it.
So while we have our frustrations with the school system, we need to balance our perspective, no? Give credit where it is due and not over credit where it is not due.
Yes... I get you. Balanced view right?
For me, it's just that I didn't believe in guiding my kids at all academically. I had always focused more on character and food and play. But when exams test what teachers don't teach, then well... I have to teach. So... in essence, I am DS' tutor? Does that make sense to you?
Hence, since I teach what the school did not teach but did test, I conclude that kids learn what they need to know to cope with exams from tutors. How is that over-crediting my role as DS' tutor. I don't think I am being imbalanced here. It is a logical and balanced conclusion from what I have experienced.
I didn't guide DS at all in Lower Primary. We bought our first assessment book in end-P3. DS had no enrichment before P1... no tuition... no guidance from me.
I didn't know I was supposed to guide in academics too. I didn't do that with DD and she did fine simply because I built character. I thought that if I taught my kids to be diligent, hardworking (character education), the academics will sort themselves out... but no matter how good a boy he was, DS couldn't keep up... and when I sat down in P5 to analyze gap between exams and homework practice, I knew I had to step into the academic gap.
I now have to teach. If a parent can't teach, then tutors need to teach what Teachers don't. Funz, does that make sense to you?
SAHMTan... if my comments today make a difference to how MOE runs it schools, may your children get to P5 and be spared the trauma my son went through because he had a Mommy who was as laid back as you.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login