I have discovered a rising trend in the Primary education in
Singapore that has over the years, reached a rather unhealthy level
affecting both the students and the parents. The trendset is quite
obvious as what was primary education in the 1970's as compared to
now. Standards were raised both intellectually in terms of school
curriculum as well as the grade of teachers now teaching in primary
schools. Graduates are employed to teach primary education which
means that parents have a higher expectations from these batch of
qualified teachers. Well, if it is quality teaching that ensues,
naturally a student of normal intelligence will both enjoy and
benefit from the syllabus the educational system provides. But as a
matter of fact, school curriculum working under pressure from these
qualified teachers has proven not to be successful. There is a
prevailing 'kiasu syndrome' that encompasses the livelihood of
these teachers not to mention the keen competition among teachers.
And coupled with the competition amongst various schools these has
somehow led to a deviation from the clear objectives set in the
role of primary education system. I am not against qualified
teachers but then this scenario actually exists.
To measure up to the yardstick, a degree holder will definitely has
to prove to the world that his teaching methods are logically
superior than one that is not. He has to protect himself by dishing
out loads and loads of schoolwork to the students. This means to
show to the parents that the teachers are providing a form of
quarantee that by completing these massive loads of school
assignments, the students would be resourceful enough to handle any
examinations. Also, the teachers' expectations would be very much
higher. Each teacher will handout a sufficiently 'kiasu' amount of
homework enough to occupy and tire out the student everyday without
fail. The amount of schoolwork given out not by one teacher alone
but by four different teachers of four different subjects is enough
to cause the primary student to sit by his desk the whole day. Does
this meet the objectives of the educational system? I doubt
so.
To add woes to this vicious cycle, concerned and 'kiasu' parents
who are worried that their children may lack behind the school
curriculum; as the intellectual standards of primary education had
been raised to the extent that even some of the questions in the
assignment worksheets have profounded most parents, these parents
resort to further educating their children by sending them to
tuition centres cum inviting tuition teachers to personalise
coaching for their children. Wow, does this sounds dynamic ?
Not so dynamic when you are in the shoes of these little souls. Not
only these little souls have to appeased the unabating lashing of
schoolwork from their school teachers, they would also have to
complete all the tutorials and handouts from their next level of
tuition centre teachers and hometuition teachers because these
teachers too, have to answer for the sake of their students'
results. You can imagine how stressful and miserable the primary
student is. On top of this, the Primary School itself will also
demand the student to sit in for extra lessons after schooling
hours up to 3 or 4 p.m. if the student is already attending the
morning session. Just imagine, at a tender age like theirs, they
would have to sit from 4.30 p.m. onwards up till 11 pm or near
midnight just to do all these work notwithstanding the fact that
when they fall ill, or take one day MC from school they will be
miles away from the previous day work; some parents even forced
their child to continue working while they are sick - good grief !
..... It frequently happens to a kiasu parent. And usually if they
could not finish the school assignment, they will have to wake up
at 5 a.m. to finish the bulk. As a result, they had only 5 to 6
hours of sleep due to sheer pressure.
Concerning the higher standard of primary education curriculum, I
personally found that the relative standard in primary education
has been raised to a level far above the standard back in 1970's or
80's. The syllabuses covered more depth in every subject and the
area of coverage has widened extensively. This is more apparent
from primary three to primary six. It is not unusual to find
complex problem sums in Mathethematics that even astounded most
parents for as to this level of maturity exhibited in a particular
topic in that subject requires a child of certain calibre of
intelligence to work within an express time-frame to answer these
questions in both assignments and examinations. Stress is healthy
but if levels have gone beyond their limits, more harm could be
done to these students, exhausting their mental capabilities as
well as their physical well being. Only the very brilliant ones can
walk out of school not so tensed up but how many of the
not-so-brilliant ones can take the sheer pressure from their kind
of schoolwork ? I think Education has to be looked in from a
different perpective point where appropriate systems apply to a
particular age group of students and not look far too beyond a
standard that is difficult to cope and cause retrograding results.
We need to be in the shoes of these little souls in order to see
their pressures from all angles.
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mckool