Chee Soon Juan's SDP proposes an alternative Education policy
for Singapore :
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/4431-sdp-proposes-alternative-education-policy
Singapore’s educational system has always been geared towards
producing talent for a particular industry the government considers
important at that material time. Today it may be the computer
industry, tomorrow life sciences.
In 2001, the education minister related that this was because the
government had to prepare Singaporeans to ride the “next wave in
scientific and technological innovations."
This utilitarian approach continues through to the university
level. Top students at the National University of Singapore will
now be enrolled in a special curriculum where they will be trained
"for the new economy."
In short, the PAP’s education policy is a massive effort to teach
students what to think, not how to think. It reduces students to
digits to be trained, not minds to be expanded.
Professor Roger Schank, director of the Institute of Learning
Sciences in Northwestern University said of Singapore’s education
system: "You don’t have a great education. Your sense of a
well-educated man is someone who has memorised all the
facts."
Also, there is a socio-economic divide in our school system where
the haves and have-nots experience drastically learning
environments which lead to very different outcomes in academic
success.
These and many other shortcomings in our educational system need
urgent reform, measures which are proposed below:
SDP's solutions
It is important that we teach our children that reading and
learning can be enjoyable and intrinsically rewarding. To achieve
this we must:
Rethink our educational philosophy. Learning should be
made an enjoyable activity where discovery of oneself and one's
aptitude is given priority instead of making students perform an
endless series of classroom tests.
The priority should be placed on the learner; it should not be
decided by educators or, worse, the government. We need an
enlightened educational system where we develop a well-rounded
curriculum, emphasizing on foundational knowledge, creativity,
critical thinking and problem-solving.
Reduce class size. Presently, the number of students per
class remains at around 40. Such a large number of pupils per class
means that each student receives less attention. The SDP proposes
that the teacher-student ratio for each class be 1:20.
This not only allows teachers to spend more time per student but it
also means less marking and administrative duties for our
educators, freeing them up for more interactive time with
students.
Increase funding for neighbourhood schools. Data from the
Ministry of Education suggests that educational achievement of
students is correlated to economic status of families.
Neighbourhood schools are often attended by students from
lower-income families and students there have poorer academic
performances that the elite schools.
More financial resources should, therefore, be given to
neighbourhood schools to enable them to employ more and
better-trained educators, as well as build better facilities to
improve their standard of teaching.
Reduce content and rote-learning. The classroom syllabi
are too much to fit into school hours. This causes teachers to dump
the material on students regardless of whether the students
understand what they are being taught or not. Seeing their children
unable to cope with their schoolwork, parents are forced to put
their students through private tuition classes. Reducing curriculum
content will facilitate better learning and appreciation of the
subjects taught.
The number of classroom examinations should also be reduced. In
their place introducing more hands-on projects that emphasize
discovery and creative thinking will cultivate a love for learning.
Spelling lists should be reduced and replaced by games such as
Hangman, Scrabble, Charade, etc. as forms of learning.
De-emphasize the PSLE, GCE examinations. Students do
little else other than to cram for examinations. The sole objective
is to "spot" questions so that they can regurgitate the content
that they have memorised from 10-year-series model answers. All our
students do is to become "exam smart". They do not master or
appreciate the content that is taught in class.
Reduce the significance that is placed on such major
examinations. Emphasize, instead, on continual assessments
that enable educators to more accurately gauge the level of
understanding of material taught as well as better assess the
potential of students.
Introduce single-session schools. School hours should be
limited to one session with the hours lengthened to eight hours a
day, starting at 8 am and ending at 4 pm. The longer hours would
allow non-teaching time where staff can supervise students on their
homework as well as conduct extra-curricular activities.
Conclusion
Clearly, the PAP does not have a clear idea of what education is or
should be besides defining it in terms of dollars and cents. Who is
the educated Singaporean? What qualities would we like to see in
our children? How should education serve the needs of Singapore
over and beyond economic considerations? Why are Singaporeans not
reading as much as their counterparts in other countries?
These are not esoteric questions. They are fundamental issues that
are essential in the formulation of sound educational
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