Education: Do well, move up

laser51088 SG

EDUCATION SERVICE
Do well, move up
THE way teachers are assessed and rewarded has gone through major changes over the years.

No longer are they promoted based on seniority, and neither is pension used to entice young teachers to stay on. Instead, they progress according to performance.

A new appraisal scheme has also been introduced this year. Called the Enhanced Performance Management System (Emps), it spells out clearly the knowledge and skill requirements needed to do well.

'Emps gives greater clarity in terms of our expectations of the job-holder and the professional characteristics needed for success in each track,' a spokesman for the Education Ministry told The Straits Times.

'Teachers can use this to help them work towards developing themselves along their desired career paths.'

It will be implemented in stages for the three different career tracks. First to go on this system this year are those on the leadership and senior-specialist tracks, while those on the teaching track will have to wait till 2005.

But wage reforms for teachers' salaries began as early as September 2000, when the ministry embarked on a nine-month review to make the pay packets more competitive and flexible.

The result: A new plan was rolled out to give teachers more bonuses, higher salaries and increased training opportunities, costing the ministry $173 million more in 2001, the year it was launched.

This included a gratuity plan, called Connect, which rewards teachers for staying on. They get $2,000 to $4,800 set aside every year, and a portion of it can be withdrawn every three to five years and the balance upon retirement.

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,195594,00.html?

The Singaporean education ministry, and perhaps Singapore as a whole, simply LOVES such all encompassing schemes as form of grading be it for workers, teachers, students, organisations, etc.

But maybe the ministry can make clearer what the hell does EMP involve. I'm more interested in what is the substance rather than the name of this scheme. The seems to be so many bloody schemes we as Singaporeans don't even know which is for what.

If this EMP has a component that judges teachers by students performance, then it'll just be another way of increasing stress for us as students. And dammit, whatr the heck did the Remaking Singapore Committee or some other funky committee with a name roughly like this said? i thought they mentioned some crap abt reducing stress and what not.

And I applaud the gentleman who wrote in today that Singaporean kids should be given a break during hols.

Also on the topic of education, I wonder why students have to be forced, in many cases, to attend their CCAs if these CCAs are reflective of students interest?

And why does Singapore intend to keep the O' levels despite the fact that even Britain is thinking of restructuring it? Some official mentioned sometime ago that its because Singapore's education system is already modified to encourage creativity or some other nonsense like that. LIke hell it is.

So we'll continue this trend. Singapore will provide the engineers, the scientists, researchers, and all the other salaried workers. Countries like the US will produce the businessmen, the executives and management staff. Twisted Evil

Stevenson101 SG

To sum up my opinion of the Education Ministry?

^_^ _|_

SingaporeMacross SG

^_^ _|_

good good!! Mr. Green

GTO SG

The EPMS does include a students' performance component whereby teachers will state a target for a specific subject for a class they teach based on the EPI (expected performance index) of the students.

In the case of a secondary school. The EPI is dervied usually based on a student's PSLE, sometimes including the examinations standards based on the school's past yr results for each level.

I don't think this is gonna add to the burden of the students though. U think all the teachers gv a shit bout this EPMS? I can tell u tt many dun even really know how to submit a proper EPMS report. Don't assume tt all teachers are out there to perform and out perform their peers. From what I see, most are ppl who r really dedicated, grooming their students well. Its just tt in an environment like Singapore, sometimes its really "Ren zai jiang hu, shen bu you ji". Blame the MOE "thinkers" living in the ivory towers for coming up with endless prog to stimulate, nurture leaders of tml.

The EPI in the 1st place is not very reflective of a student's capabilities in a subject. This is especially so when students get to upper sec. For eg. A student might hv achieved an A* for chinese in PSLE and thus creating a good EXPECTED PERFORMANCE but the actual case might be tt he/she is actually struggling with the subject due to various reasons.

All in all, I dun think tt the EPMS is gonna change how a teacher teaches his/her students much. It just makes the work review repot for teachers more goal specific (measurable) and less vague.

Cheerz~~~

Stevenson101 SG

I think the majority of teachers are not like that lah, a few of my secondary teachers teach in the way they believe was proper and they never ridicule or pressured me for getting poor results. (Of course that was 4 years ago!)

I think those guys in the education ministry will foam in their mouth and go blind in one eye if they had to teach a class of monkeys(Which means every class in Singapore) for a single term.

[ Neo ] SG

Well, I suppose much of us can understand on Laser51088s feelings towards the Grading System that we are all too familiar with. Laughing

On the issue of students being complied to take on CCA and the relevance of that action as an indication of their interest, I agree wholeheartedly that this current mentality is somewhat flawed in comparison to the ideas actual original intention effectiveness.

As a personal view, the limitation and constraining of a students personal interest and direction of development should never be limited only within the parameter walls of their school itself.

If the current modus of interest acknowledgement could be expanded to allow students the freedom to pursue and develop their freedom from a larger variety of credible sources from other non-MOE affiliated organizations such as the NLB, NParks or NYAA, I believe that the wider variety of activity choices and exposure to the differing learning environments would probably serve more effective towards the achievement of the Ministrys original intention towards their conceiving and implementing of the original plan.

Say we have a budding youngster who has an interest in the botanic focus.

Wouldnt the freedom to pursue a CCA with the support of the NParks authorities be a more constructive and enriching alternative as compared to the student learning and picking up on the limited skills, knowledge and expertise from his/her Science Club teacher who may be already overloaded with routine work, trained previously in an engineering field, and half-hearted conduct the CCA within the parameter of that pathetic patch of dying grass behind the classroom block?

If there were any conceptions on the opinion that the current Educational Structure is already creatively, those conceptions would probably require some further revision.

The truth is that while we have had two strong points in our Educational System that has served us well previously, the change in Time and Environment is demanding more to sustain this magical formula.

While structuralizing and specializing has played an undeniable and vital role in the transformation of this land from a agricultural to a labor intensive and subsequently capital intensive mfg core, the fact is that alternative face of this movement results in the our own tragedy, as lamented by Laser51088, that we now only think the sequential line of being somebody else engineers or researchers.

Lost are the days where the Tan Jia Kim, Tan Tock Seng and Haw Par Brothers spirit of dare and self-empowering belief. And gone are the days where the majority dares to dream of the world beyond the visible horizon.

In place today, some schools appeared to be focusing more aggressively instead, on some other agendas.

Take the Variety Colored Corn experiment that was on the local news aired some weeks back.

I must admit that I was really quite surprised that certain gifted sec schools really have so much gifted students, whereby their students are really so capable that that they would have already been equipped with all the necessary know-how to carry out a genetically altered corn experiment even before the entire O levels syllabus has been completely taught to the students.

On this little example, Im not sure on what to comment about the genuinely of the experiment, but Ill just like to add in one thing here.

The members of the Public may not be all PHDs holders, but were not stupid enough to fall for such fibs either.

[ Neo ] SG

And going back to the EPI system, I am in full agreement with GTOs description of the Thinkers in their Ivory Tower, and his/her opinion that the system is only just another pretty management controlling devise.

The idea of attempting to quantify what cannot be quantified is already a mistake in that thought itself.

We are talking about Education here, not money.

What can anyone possibly attempt to quantify on something like that?

Are they trying to quantify a students interest in a subject? Trying to quantify a students motivation to pay attention and learn more in the classroom? Or are they tying to quantify on the ability of a students response to certain styles of teaching mediums?

Give the new generations a break and spare them the unconstructive nonsense please

Relating Education into Economics, as at today, SG is among the leading first world country in this global community.

And as at current, our primary core performances comes from Specialist dominated performances from sectors such as the marine-related, manufacturing, semiconductor electronics and several other technical and financial blahs.

In comparison with the rest of the established global leaders such as the US, EU, Japan etc, there is really quite little what we can do with them but to maintain our survivability in our selected little niche.

But behind our backs, we certainly have new predators such China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia who are all certainly trying their damnest to come in and reach for the kill.

And do these countries have a lack of engineers or researchers?

The answer is no.

In trying to remain status quo, if not to advance even further, we need to open up brand new skies at a fast and furious pace.

And before that that transition phase is complete, the least that we need to do is to maintain on our foothold on SGs current global niche.

To do that, the speediest and most realistic way would be to breed out new generations and prototypes of multifunctional Generalists.

The reason why SG is relying so much on foreign talents for much of its growing phase is because We lacked this crucial element in our current domestic manpower structure.

We need all-rounded bootlickers who are fluent with languages from all over the world, familiar with the differing cultures from one hundred and one other different countries.

SG public relation people who can please international clients and give strong and good reasons to convince these clients to work with a local SG incorporated company above the available choices of the other one thousand and one foreign registered companies on queue outside the clients door.

And in relating this pressing need back onto the EPI introduction, will this new systems implementation really positively contribute and deliver what is needed into the programs of the newer generations to better prepare them for reality and needs of the dynamic future?

Clearly by driving everybody involved even more deeply into the already suffocating academia-crazy and specializing mentality, I think not.

The EPIs implementation would probably only serve as another bureaucratic addition.

Apart from throwing Alice even further back into her little fantasy Wonderland world, I dun see how the system could possibly improve on the quality of Education or the teachers here.

laser51088 SG

haha.
anyway, i went for some course in school in sec 1 where theyt taught us how to make genetically modified bacteria. glow in the dark.

the gene extract was already prepared for us. all we had to do was culture the bacteria, inject the stuff to make it sick such that it is easier for the gene extract to get in, and then put it with the gene extract and incubate overnight. not sure if i remember the steps correctly. the gene modification learned in school is quite simple, not as complicated as u might think. and anyway, inserting gene into another organism is mostly either using a virus or a gene gun.

gtg, will tok again later.

[ Neo ] SG

Laughing You see? All kelong one.

Parka SG

Eduction system easy to change lah, relatively. People are hard to change.

nismoS132 SG

you can't expect sec sch students without even a proper understanding of genetics to honestly modify anything except their toy tamiya (nowadays they play with beyblades, not even mechanical anymore).

however, what has been done is still a good step to letting them understand how the process is like. to let them, better know what genetics, and gene therapy and manipulation is about.

laser51088 SG

aiyah, what u xpect? the extract is from some funky jellyfish that i can't remember the name of.

maybe the one's in the news did a more complicated version? Embarassed