What Went Wrong In Our School System?
Is our school system really developing the desired students that society is looking for? Before I answer, I must make it clear that I am not in any political party trying to denounce our government, No, our government had done well and I am one of those that had benefited from its policy. From poverty, I am now Ok, not rich, though, can survive without much of a problem.
Back to what I want to write. Somehow, I feel that our education system is moving on the wrong track. You read of how a JC student who whacks a bus driver and the father had to beg for forgiveness on his behalf. Will not relate the story. But the issue is, that from one of the top school in Singapore, out comes such behavior. Surely, we expect better characters from such top school. So where went wrong? No, I don’t blame the boy too much, although he must also be responsible for what he did. I sincerely believe that it is what is happening in the school system that is causes such problem. It is what we in the education call KPI, or Key Performance Indicator. We are so consumed with such performance indicator, such as percentage of passing rate, percentage of drop out, etc that at times, our full concentration is on meeting these targets that we fail to groom our students to a person of good moral value.
If only we will return to old days of educating our youngster, where we do not have to worry of punishing our students, where we do not have to keep ensuring that they will score very well in exam only, then things will look much better.
When I first started teaching, if a student is really not behaving, we will definitely discipline them without fear of having their parents complaining. Nowadays, I see too many teachers who worry too much of having parents complaining about them, that they will tends to give too much leeway to our youngster. That is why; our students are getting bolder and react without much restraint!!! I can tell you that I missed the old days of a teaching life. I now tend to be losing my passion for teaching as we become more and more incline to meet all those key performance indicators!!! Hopefully things will be better and changes will take place in the education sector, if not I dread the out come of our future youngster
Back to what I want to write. Somehow, I feel that our education system is moving on the wrong track. You read of how a JC student who whacks a bus driver and the father had to beg for forgiveness on his behalf. Will not relate the story. But the issue is, that from one of the top school in Singapore, out comes such behavior. Surely, we expect better characters from such top school. So where went wrong? No, I don’t blame the boy too much, although he must also be responsible for what he did. I sincerely believe that it is what is happening in the school system that is causes such problem. It is what we in the education call KPI, or Key Performance Indicator. We are so consumed with such performance indicator, such as percentage of passing rate, percentage of drop out, etc that at times, our full concentration is on meeting these targets that we fail to groom our students to a person of good moral value.
If only we will return to old days of educating our youngster, where we do not have to worry of punishing our students, where we do not have to keep ensuring that they will score very well in exam only, then things will look much better.
When I first started teaching, if a student is really not behaving, we will definitely discipline them without fear of having their parents complaining. Nowadays, I see too many teachers who worry too much of having parents complaining about them, that they will tends to give too much leeway to our youngster. That is why; our students are getting bolder and react without much restraint!!! I can tell you that I missed the old days of a teaching life. I now tend to be losing my passion for teaching as we become more and more incline to meet all those key performance indicators!!! Hopefully things will be better and changes will take place in the education sector, if not I dread the out come of our future youngster
posted by Sebastian Chu at 2:07 PM
