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