Waste of Talent!

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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Science and Tech school in demand
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Nur Dianah Suhaimi
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Mr Alvin Sng and his family looking at a model of the school building. He plans to enrol his children in the new School of Science and Technology. The specialised independent school has received 470 applications for its 200 places so far. -- LIANHE ZAOBAO PHOTO
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->The new School of Science and Technology (SST) is proving to be a big hit.
Since it began accepting applications last month, 470 students have applied for the 200 places on offer - and there are still three months to go before the exercise closes.
The specialised independent school, which will open next year, will add innovation and entrepreneurship into the mix.
The flood of applications mirrors that experienced by the three other specialised schools - the Singapore Sports School, NUS High School of Mathematics and Science and the School of the Arts - when they opened.
The School of the Arts, for example, saw 600 students audition for just 200 places last year.
The SST will cater to students from Secondary 1 to 4. Its open house saw about 2,500 students and parents turning up yesterday.
Speaking to reporters at the school yesterday, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said: 'As the economy matures, we find it is not enough just to have schools which are strong in traditional ways, in science or mathematics. You've got to develop the soft skills - how to market an idea and how to use technology to produce products that the public will buy.
'Many of our successful businessmen and entrepreneurs have said that we have to train children from young.'
Students who apply for a place in SST will be shortlisted and taken in via the Direct School Admissions scheme, which will run until August.
They will be selected based on a video audition and their exam results, as well as how they perform in a 'selection camp'.
Students may also apply after they have received their PSLE results at the end of the year, but they will be put on a waiting list.
Students at SST will study similar core subjects as other secondary school students and sit for the O-level exams.
However, their lessons will be more hands-on and will cover business skills. Students will also be given entrepreneurship lessons by polytechnic and university lecturers.
Class sizes will be kept small, at between 20 and 25 students a class.
At the upper secondary level, students are given the choice to study subjects such as media studies, environmental science and technology, and biotechnology.
Parents gave the new school the thumbs up.
Madam Tan Lee Lee, 39, applied for a place for her 12-year-old son two weeks ago.
She said: 'He's very interested in maths and science, but what I like most is the small class size. Unlike in normal schools, teachers here can pay more attention to each student.' The school will be housed in a temporary site in Clementi Avenue 6. It will move to a permanent site at the junction of Clementi Road and Commonwealth Avenue West in January 2012.

 

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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>RELIEF FOR STUDENTS: 10-year series out in July
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Copyright issue involving reprints of past Cambridge exams has been resolved </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Estelle Low and Kimberley Lim
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After almost six months, publisher Michelle Yoo might finally stop receiving frantic phone calls.
Her firm, Singapore Asian Publications, has received more than 50 calls daily from parents, teachers and students since the start of the year.
They wanted to know why they could not buy copies of the sought-after 10-year series, which compiles questions from past O- and A-level exams into books by subject.
The series was pulled because of a copyright issue.
For more than 40 years, the series, affectionately called TYS, has been relied upon by many students to beef up their confidence and exam smarts.
Dunman High student Lee Kang Lin, 18, said: 'The TYS gives us a very good gauge of what we will eventually face in the Cambridge exam. Whenever we approach our seniors for help, they always refer us to the TYS.'
There is good news now. The Ministry of Education (MOE) told The Sunday Times in an e-mail on Friday that the copyright issue had been resolved, and that the series will be back in July.
The Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) and the copyright holder, the University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), reached an agreement on Friday.
For the past few months, students have been making do with preliminary exam papers from various schools, or scrambling to get copies of the TYS bought previously by others.
When told the good news, Kang Lin, however, said the release of the TYS in July may be 'too late'.
'I'm not relying much on the TYS as my school has been giving me exam papers from other schools, which now make up the bulk of my studying material,' said the student.
Still, she will buy the TYS for the mathematics and economics papers, 'to gauge exam standards'.
Local publishers, who have to tender for the right to produce the TYS, are also glad that the wait is over.
'If we are awarded the tender, the pressure for us then is to produce the TYS as quickly as possible since we have only about four months before the written exams begin,' said Ms Yoo.
Every year, the TYS is updated with the latest exam papers.
Assistant to the executive director of Shing Lee Publishers, Ms Adeline Ng, agreed that it is 'a bit too late'.
Typically, the peak period for TYS sales is the first half of the year.
Shing Lee said the number of copies it sold last year ranged from a few thousand to 20,000, depending on the subjects.
Maths and science are bestsellers while others like principles of accounts and food and nutrition are less popular due to a smaller pool of exam candidates.
Popular Book Company sold more than 100,000 copies of the TYS last year. It made up about 4 per cent of its total sales.
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