The Greatest Love of All

I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us all how we used to be
- opening lyrics from "Greatest Love of All", Masser/Creed

Hardly anyone disputes the importance of education as a force for economic, social and cultural development. Education is also a driver of social equity by providing opportunities to youths from underprivileged backgrounds. In this one respect, perception and reality are probably aligned. The political cost of spending more on education is likely to be minimal, and as long as marginal utility from such spending is positive, probably easier to justify than ministerial salaries.

But what are the policy objectives underlying education in Singapore? I would like to suggest my three of my own policy objectives, not necessarily in order of importance. First, the educational system should maximise the potential of every child. Second, the system should be capable of assessing that potential, and be able to differentiate on that basis. Third, that the system produces citizens capable of functioning in the real world.

Maximising Potential
This is a truly multidimensional subject. The system must cater to students which are academically strong as well as those who are weak. Streaming is probably a neccessary evil, in some form or another. However, I would argue that the way streaming has been implemented is probably flawed and needs to be improved. (more on this later) Another major flaw in our system is the focus on traditional academic skills, to the detriment with those with potential in alternatives like art or music. (to be fair, this could be a criticism of Singapore society as a whole rather than of the education system, though one begets the other in a vicious cycle)

Assessment and Differentiation
Without a means to measure their levels of achievement, the educational system is doing a vast disservice both to its students, and to itself. This is also important where there is competition for limited spots in the next stage of the ladder. One could argue that the A and O level examinations are increasingly poor differentiators at the top end as getting distinctions become easier (what an oxymoron!). It is also necessary to spot weak students who may require more help and attention, as well as spotting weaknesses in the educational system in general.

I would like to note that examinations, which are the traditional way of accomplishing this in Singapore, are continually being replaced by components with greater "continual assessment" and non-academic indicators. However, this introduces subjectivity into the equation.

Real World Relevance
I remember taking two years of Technical Studies as a secondary school student (which pretty much dates me). Is that more useful than learning about soil erosion and how oxbow lakes form? It is easier to engage a student when something is interesting and hands on. However, many things that seem boring in school are actually very useful in real life. Or may be necessary as a foundation so one can get to the interesting stuff. So, I'm not sure how curriculum reform should proceed. Fortunately, I think that this has little impact on the key subject of this post, which is:

Streaming
One way to achieve all three objectives is to segregate students on the basis of ability. In theory, this allows students to find their own level, where the weaker students can get more help without holding the fast ones back. It also allows the curriculum to be tailored to each segment rather than forcing a million different feet into the same size shoe.

But I think streaming, at least in practice, has become more of a burden and stigma. Can late bloomers flourish under this system? Do students in a "weaker" stream suffer from second-order effects that stunt their future growth (i.e. does streaming have a causal effect on rather than correlation with performance)? I believe that within most people, there is a potential to find something that they are good at, and with the right amount of self-pride and determination, this can be developed to both the individual and society's benefit. What the current system does may be to erode that self-pride (granted, part of the blame lies with society)

How do we know streaming is necessary? As an extreme case, let's examine college math. In many of the very good colleges, two introductory courses in multivariate calculus are available. One is usually meant for "general consumption" which means that it provides working knowledge for economics or engineering majors. The other, honours calculus, is meant for math or physics majors who actually need to understand the subject. Of course, honours calculus is more difficult.

What happens is that at the first lecture, a lot of people attend the honours calculus class. By the end of two weeks, only a few remain. This is voluntary streaming in its purest form. This frees the professor from having to explain each equation to the village idiot, and allows the econ major who only wants to learn Lagrange coefficients to avoid matrix algebra. Voila! now take this principle and extend it to primary school kids. Not so simple, is it now? In schools, unlike in a top college, the wastage of resources probably makes such a Darwinistic approach infeasible.

I Have No Answers
I've noted multiple times that many of the problems with the system may actually stem from societal pressures, parental expectations et al and can't be resolved independently from within the educational system. However, I have a couple of suggestions.

For one, I think that schools should instil a greater sense of self-pride in students. When you believe, the results are far greater. I remember that I got 35/50 for my first math test in Primary Four (which is quite a poor score, don't you think?) My teacher told me that I could (and should) do better. (And I did) We should find ways to give students this self-belief and instil in them a sense of purpose. Part of it is convincing people that opportunities are still available for them to succeed no matter where they are on the totem pole.

Second, should the resources allow it, we should provide for more scope for students to fail. Schools have little spare capacity, making it difficult to recreate the "try it out for a few weeks to see if you can tahan" scenario I have above. The requirement to follow a national curriculum make such experiments costly. But if I was a policy-maker, I would love to think about how to introduce this into the system without pissing the parents off. (parents usually think that their kids are above average, though 50% of them are wrong in that regard)

Does that sound paradoxical? You want pride, but you also want failure? Time for my Chinese saying of the day: 真金不怕火炼 (loosely translated as the true metal is not afraid of the fire). The secret is to achieve the right blend. I find our current system too unforgiving of academic weakness (esp at a young age). Perhaps if students had greater opportunity to find their own level rather than it being foisted upon them by their parents or the system, Singaporean society would be better off for it.

Life is brutal

I see a lot of attention in the Straits Times forum pages focused on university admissions recently. At least two parents have wrote in to complain that their children have failed to gain admission to university (or to their first-choice course). This has generated a fair bit of online discussion at various blogs. I don't think I should add to the debate over Singaporeans vs foreigners or what proportion of the populace should be allowed to go to university.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the growing sense of entitlement among Singaporeans today. By virtue of being Singaporean citizens, paying taxes and serving NS (for the guys), we deserve many, many things. We (or our children) deserve to go to university and get a cushy job. Nobody, especially not the "so-called foreign talent", should take that chance away from us. And the government, by setting aside places for foreigners and trying to attract foreign talent, is doing exactly that.

Unfortunately, life is brutal. We don't always get what we want (in my experience, getting what you want tends to be the exception). Much of the time, it is our fault. We were not good enough, did not work hard enough and did not achieve our aims. On rare occasions, we are beset by genuine misfortune.

I'll be kind and say that the majority of people are capable of looking in the mirror. However, a vocal minority will always find someone else to blame. Can't get into university? Oh, the admission process is unfair and biased. Not transparent enough. Too much luck involved. Or too many places reserved for foreigners.

The system is imperfect, granted. But it is good enough. If 20% of each batch goes to university, I would say that our current system easily identifies the top 12% or so. Maybe the system doesn't do so well in differentiating the remaining 8% from the next 8%. So if you fall into that margin, there's probably a huge amount of luck involved. But in Singapore, there are no endemic social, racial or economic inequalities that prevent a good student from being able to attend university, regardless of background. I would estimate that the majority of the world's population does not live in a country which can make such a claim.

I do not mean to chastise those who wrote in the first place. But I see a lot of blog posts who claim that Singaporeans are second-class citizens in their own countries, as foreigners are given scholarships to NUS, given places that should go to local talent. It's taxpayers' money (this is an important argument that deserves its own post sometime in future). Let's be honest with ourselves. To borrow a baseball analogy, Singaporeans are born on second base and think they hit a double.

Let's say that you are a Singaporean male who is in the 25th percentile of your batch by academic aptitude. By my estimation, you have about a 40% chance of getting into a local university. Would you honestly switch places with a foreign national who is in the 25th percentile? Think about your chances of attending university at all, let alone getting a scholarship to some foreign university. Yet I suspect that plenty of said foreigners wouldn't mind being born in Singapore and enjoying being "second-class", even if it meant serving NS. (Having said that, I knew several Americans that used military service to finance college... voluntarily. Draw your own conclusions.)

Well, enough of that. Not getting to a local university is not the end of the world. You can go overseas. You can tread the road less travelled. Become an entrepreneur, learn to cook (better). I wonder how people got by in the 1970s, when a far smaller proportion of each batch went to university. As the saying goes - 东家不打 打西家. (loosely translated - can't get into the east house, try the west house.) I'll bet that most people get over it real fast.

And if I have offended your sensibilities with my honesty, I am glad. I don't seek to change your opinion, but to show you a different point of view. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I'm too elitist. I'll take that chance, if you've learnt something by reading this post.