Politics in education system Part 1

dualplex SG

Before I start shooting my mouth off (in this case, typing without any pauses), there is a disclaimer for you guys. I will claim the sole responsibility of this entry. If this entry is deemed defamatory in any ways I know not of, I am more than willing to retract this entry without fail, along with an apology. Any characters that I mentioned, except the targeted ones, are not involved in this creation of this entry. It is solely my idea. That is the disclaimer.

I and alphi had an interesting discussion on politics, education system and surprisingly MM Lee. Oops... My bad, I forgot what the sequence was. It happened during the 1 1/2 hr break we had on Thursday (we do not take CLA or HCL). Let me recall. Ooh yes, the present Singapore: How open does it allow the youths today to speak up? What can be done to remedy this? From where we can emulate. How culture affects the politics in schools. Examples on which we can draw upon from to see the openness Singapore allows for the youths today. The political structure of Singapore. The dark secrets of the Government. The puppeteer of Singapore. We also mentioned about the Matrix likeness in the real world (not the reel world). Animovs Foundation and Empire series Seldon and Seldons plan in Singapore. Surprising to talk about Seldon and Matrix. Well, there are some philosophy stuff that are applicable in the real world. Real chim you can say. That is roughly what we talked about on that morning. I have to break this up into at least 3 instalments as I wish not to bombard you guys with world. Already this introduction is a half a page by Microsoft Words reckoning.

It all sparked off from a comment from alphi. For a couple of science guys, we are abit deep in our response, and deeper if you put us together. For once, I have a nagging suspicion about it nothing to be co-incidental. If I am right, the comment goes, How I wish we can speak up more. Correct me if I am wrong alphi. How so, that is we are not speaking up more? My eyebrow rose. And there we go. One thing to note: the discussion we had merely streamlined my thinking, expand my horizon and bring in new perspectives. Kind of contradicting each other. Nevermind about that. We can talk about it next time. (New topic for you guys to broach on.)

Yes, how open is open for us, the youths of today, to talk about politics. Yes, we do have politicks in the classrooms, the teachers office, the workplace, in every small but yet possible and significant way. But the politics I am talking about is the major one, the one tat is always in the news. The Government, Ministries, PAP, Workers Party, yada yada. You get the idea. The new Government led by the 3rd generation Prime Minister, PM Lee, encourage the youths today to speak up, to think critically for and against the Government and the political settings in Singapore. The previous Government led by the then PM Goh had opened the Speakers Corner. Of course, there were plenty of red tape and strings attached to it. Even though some of them have being deemed obsolete and removed, the popularity of it still remains at the bare bottom. Even now, I am not certain that the regular speakers still speak in that little corner.

Oh, by the way, courtesy of the Pre-U Sem presenters. Youths are defined by the age group of 13-30 and are split into 2 classes generally: the studying youth, thats us now, and the working youths, thats us five years down the road.

Are there platforms for the studying youths to voice their opinions, dissatisfactions and other stuff in school? One may argue, yes there is. The platform is called the student dialogue session in our school. But still, is it working? The only session I have attended so far was held by the 19th Student Council last term. Even so, they were there mainly to get more applicants to be the next Council. It worked on me for awhile, but still I prefer to work from the outside. Other than that, they did mention about teachers and asked us to feedback. The response was muted, even though there were no teachers in sight. So how effective is thatplatform? And that session by far was the only seesion which was the nosiest.

What about other schools? (I simply love using the Young PAP webpage and LKYs memoirs for references for this entry. However, as I construct this from memories, the history maybe wrong. Correct me on this.) Let us look at NUS and NTU. Before the then PM Lee managed to stabilize the country, NTU was politically influenced with most of the students being a commie at heart. And NUS was becoming one too. However, after the stability came, the NUS only political CCA was not about politics anymore. With the little funding they received from the University, they had to concentrate on fund raising before being closed down due to the poor attendance. Same goes for NTU, but on a much larger scale. The University had to merged with the more stable NUS because of the large extent of the political influences before it managed to be a separate entity from NUS years later. The spirit of politicking in University has broken. If that is not enough, take a walk around NUS for once. Many matriculated students and staff members can swear that the school is built with only one factor in mind by the authorities: inconvenience. Spirits are easily replenished as demonstrated in other countries. So even if there is a rally to be held, it will take mucha momentum and persuasion to get the students to march up and down the school. Same goes for the polytechnics. It is not a wonder that most of the NUS lecturers are not friends of PAP. Ahhem. And of course, platforms for these schools are the lectures conducted by the foes of PAP.

I do not have the time to write out the full entry. As I have said earlier, it will be broken into at least 3 parts. Sorry about it, but I have barely scratched the surface. So it might take about 10 entries to finish what I want to write. Providing that I have the time and my interests in this entry does not wane.

crazy monkey SG

gong simi lan jiao Mad

greengoblin SG

Gosh...... what the freak man.....

Why can people write in more coherently nowadays?

charlize SG

Knn, I got lost at the disclaimer.

Is constructing a simple, coherent and easy to understand essay so Fucking hard for our uni grads today?

All bloody try to act smart by throwing in some matrix and science fiction Shit to make it look more deeper than it really is. Laughing

Atobe SG

"POLITICS IN OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM" ?

You must be 'NUTS' to dream of learning about "Politics" in our schools.

The furthest you could go will probably read about the early struggles of LKY against his visions of Communists - who were probably seen by him to be under every sheet of paper on his desks, the furnitures, rooms, and buildings - so much so that any or every gathering of a group of four persons will be considered illegal.

This rule remains today, and the enforcement of the law will depend on what is happening when four persons gather together.

The teaching of the "Political History of Singapore" in Singapore Schools is almost like the Japanese Schools learning about the involvement of Japan in the Second World War, when their history books were rewritten to omit the atrocities committed against fellow Asians.

Even at the Tertiary Level, our University Students are given so little lattitude to be involve in politics, and their "political" activities are "guided, monitored and mentored".

Will the new leadership of LHL change the situation of prudent avoidance to any form of "Political Activities" amongst the tertiary level students ?

When Representatives from the Opposition Parties are given the VERY RARE invitation to speak to the University Students, the event is held behind close doors and tight security will always be in place; with no subsequent publicity of full newspaper or TV coverage or reporting of the event.

This will hardly be the case when a member of the Ruling Elite from the Government or from the Ruling Party make an appearance to talk about Politics to the Tertiary Students.

Can we expect to refine and fire-up the X-Factor from amongst the brightest brains of our Tertiary Students in such a claustrophobic learning environment ?

Yet the Ruling Party continuously lament about the lack of talent and brains in our Singaporean Population, and prefer to open the doors to Foreign Talents - who are bred in a more OPEN EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT.

crazy monkey SG

politics in our school ? more propaganda on the Great Leader ? Laughing

stellazio SG

there are already lots of politics stuff going on in the school system nowadays.

robertteh SG

Hello Dualplex,

Here is a Very Simple Test of Establishment's sincerity about its intended openness to the young in political evolution for Singapore.

Just attend a student forum with MM Lee of our younger leaders on the next occasion when invited and speak your mind like Jamie or what you have writen.

You will get your answers immediately or soon enough through the media when you will hear ministers rebutting views of young as idealistic or not worth listening to. Try to get your several questions as posed in your political thoughts about freedoms to discuss politics in classrooms. You might get your teachers disassociating from such discussions for fear of repercussions.

What student Jamie has asked in one such session with MM Lee was : can the MM not be a despot or be more liberal with people's views or suggestions but he was immediately rebuffed and told to stand for election. The establishment already made up their mind how to handle difficult questions: Take us on form a party and throw us out in the next election if you can. No use to go on in any political discussion in students' political panels or sessions as all are for show or justification to give an image of evolution or renewal. The people invited to tea session have their own personal agenda as they will soon join the rank of the highly paid elites so they will tell people a different story about openness or participation by the young.

A real sincerity test is the best as suggested. Classroom political discussions and discourses will not carry the political evolution or renewal very far as it is being conducted in a controlled environment with history textbook already written to follow leaders' self-assumed success stories.

pkchukiss SG

I had the opportunity to attend the SIF Symposium on current affairs while I was still in JC 2 years ago, and had a great time witnessing the lively banter between a delegate from Indonesia and America's ambassader to Singapore, Mr Franklin (hope I remembered his name correctly).

They were rather upset with the US's unprovoked attack on Iraq. Needless to say, after the delegate's question was posed (to a resounding round of applause), Mr Franklin proceeded to pry the control out of her hands. I have forgotten their exchange, but I came away from the talk totally impressed with the deft diplomacy in which he managed to deal with this hot potatoe.

I was really grateful to be in the company of a few more like-minded school-mates, since all my other friends were totally uninterested in this.

The bottom line: if you were to assemble a "who's who" list of people interested in politics, you would find yourself with enough players to start just one Monopoly game.

Whether schools are truly interested in bringing politics into the radar of students is really dependant upon the education syllabus of the MOE (sadly speaking). Where there used to be independant pursual of topics other than examinations, now all that schools strive to do is to pander to the solidarity interests of the MOE, and whichever areas that appeal to the isolated scholars in the ivory tower over at Buona Vista.