Re: Lucky Tan - Why our education system is all screwed up, starting with PSLE approa
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Understanding why PSLE needs to be changed[/h]
October 30th, 2012 |
Author:
Contributions
Recently, OCBC granted a special PLSE leave plan for its staff:
“Now, anyone working for OCBC Bank or its subsidiaries can squirrel away
up to 15 days’ leave and carry it forward to the next year so that they can stay
home to help their child study for the Primary School Leaving Examination
(PSLE).”[Link]
Here
is what Minister Josephine Teo wrote in her Facebook:
Minister Teo was badly criticised for what she said. The main issue with her
remarks is she tried to apply her own situation to everyone. What her twins need
to perform reasonably well may not be what is needed for other children and
parents. Many parents were unhappy with her saying that OCBC move to support its
staff during PSLE will “feed the fears of parents” – as if parents who take
leave to help their children as irrationally fearful. She also said, “we are
quite mistaken to behave as if PSLE is THE defining moment in a child’s
development”. It is easy for a parent to say this when his or her child is doing
well and is self-motivated under the current system but lets spare some thought
for the parents of children who are late bloomers, playful or haven’t gotten
round to focus on their academics. There is natural and understandable anxiety
among these parents during the PSLE because our education system is a high
stakes game, a few marks can decide if a child goes to “Normal Technical” stream
where the chance of going to university drops to almost zero.
Make no mistake it is a high stakes game:
In my previous articles [
Link,
Link,
Link], I
wrote about the high stress that surrounds the PSLE exam. But I do not blame
this on the parents, they are merely reacting to the system….and it is not
“kiasuism”, their fears are very real because the education system sorts
children into various bins and with each bin is trapped in a certain expectation
– this expectation shapes the achievements and the future of these children –
Josephine Teo is wrong to say not the defining moment of a child’s development –
for many children it is, and the PSLE results is an important decider of their
future.
Putting so much at stake and so much pressure of 12 year old children is very
unhealthy and harms their long term development. It causes our children to
over-achieve in the beginning and underachieve in the longer run because it puts
the emphasis the wrong areas – exams over love of learning, learning fast vs
deep understanding of basic principles.
To illustrate this lets look at some numbers. Suppose you take groups of
students from various countries to test them. Lets take Israeli students,
Hungarian students Austrian students, American students, Swedish students etc at
age 14 , just after PSLE age and test them. Lets test them for math and instead
of using all our students lets just have Malay students whom the PAP (the
former PM Lee) frequently claims are weak at maths. Someone has actually done
such a test [
Link]and
these are the results:
Fast off the starting blocks our students are pressure cooked to the point
they are way ahead of everyone else. But education is a long distance thing not
a short sprint and the important outcomes are measured at the end of their
education not at the initial part. Despite this spectacular achievement at PSLE
only 6% of our Malays students make it to university and even fewer to Science
and Engineering….we only educate 27% of all our students to university level
below the average of OECD countries….and our own govt prefers give university
scholarship to foreigners than educate our world beating 12 year olds who rank
number 1 in the world for maths and science. This is the dismal outcome of our
education system…..all the extreme stress at PSLE yields very poor results at
the end – this is the “work so hard for very little results” outcomes for the
system. Compare this with the Israeli system that doesn’t result in high exams
scores in standardized testing – the score far lower that all our racial groups
– but at the end they generate more than enough people for their high tech
industry not to mention the highest Nobel Prize winner per capita in the world.
Despite the frequent and sharp criticism of the Israeli system due to low test
scores, there is one thing they do right …and this secret makes a gigantic
difference at the end in terms of final outcomes. I tell you what it is at the
end of this posting.
Much of the student effort in our system which is now supplemented by a
burgeoning tuition industry goes into trying to beat someone else at exams and
achievement and ability is measured by exam scores….energy is spent getting
yourself sorted to a better streams and schools. Such a system also does not
distinguish us from the systems in China and India who can pressure cook more
children and beat us by sheer numbers.
After putting our children through this pressuring system, the PAP govt tells
us that it has to import foreign ‘talents’ to fill our university and generate
economic growth and vibrancy. We have to invest wisely on education but what are
we getting in the end? We have to educate each child to their fullest potential
over a period of around 16 years not sort them out after 6 years and
‘pigeon-hole’ them into compartments of decline expectations. Such a system is
great for social hierarchy with elite scholars occupying the apex in our
society to provide top down directions….but where is the much needed creativity
and innovation to propel us forward…in the end much social energy is lost in the
sorting process as intense competition erodes the values of teamwork and
cooperation that will elevate all in society not just the few to whom resources
and opportunities has been disproportionately awarded
So what is the secret in the Israeli education system that makes it
different? They spend the first 5-8 years of education encouraging their
students to ask questions rather than teach them to answer questions. We do the
opposite – we measure the success and achievement of a student and teachers by
their ability to answer exam questions. Primary school education is all about
learning the facts and methods to answer questions…and year after year the
questions are made harder and harder differentiate students in terms of ability
to answer questions. We destroy the ability of our students to challenge ideas
because the faster the learn and accept, the better they do at the exams. This
is why the Israeli system that produces 14 year old who are 19 places behind us
in standardized maths and science tests come roaring back to over take us later.
We start fast …but they run further!…and it is the distance that matters.
.
Lucky Tan
Lucky Tan is an avid online blogger since 2005. He likes to study the
thoughts of Singapore leaders and the laws of Singapore. He blogs at
http://singaporemind.blogspot.com.
