More on Education

ST Oct 3, 2006
Poly courses at over 40 schools

MORE than 40 secondary schools will offer courses designed and taught by the five polytechnics to their students, some starting this month.

These 37 courses, for which separate fees are payable, range from design communication to microbiology and financial planning to electronic circuits.

Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam first announced this initiative during the Budget debate in March.

He said then that the aim of these courses was not just to expose students to applied subjects or gear them up for polytechnic studies.

These classes, called advanced elective modules, are aimed at developing inventive minds that are 'able to look for problems, invent solutions and make them happen', he said.

This is why even Integrated Programme schools like Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) and Raffles Institution are offering them.

Upper secondary students will take about 40 hours to complete each course, which can be run during school holidays or term time.

Classes will have 20 to 25 students and fees will be capped at $55 per student.

The grades that the students earn from these courses can be used to get advanced standing in some polytechnic courses, and may be considered by polytechnics during admission exercises.

Tanglin Secondary in West Coast Road, where about 60 per cent of students move on to the polytechnics, is offering tourism management and electronic-product design.

Secondary 2 student Nurul Adziemah Tawfiq Kamil, among the 100 students there eyeing the courses, said: 'It's a stepping stone towards my goal of becoming a business consultant in the tourism industry.'

Further product differentiation at the secondary school level. Not sure what to make of it. In principle, I guess it's a good idea to widen subject options so that everyone has a higher chance of studying subjects for which they they have a genuine interest. In practice, this may turn into another mad rush to score grades, because of this:

"The grades that the students earn from these courses can be used to get advanced standing in some polytechnic courses, and may be considered by polytechnics during admission exercises."

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Technorati: Singapore; education.

Thank You For Reading

As September draws to a close, I note that Mr Wang's Karmic Biscuits have reached yet another all-time high in popularity. Mr Wang's monthly unique readership exceeded 31,000 this month, and has more than tripled in the past nine months.

So thank you for reading (and commenting). And if you have enjoyed this blog, don't forget to tell your friends about it!

We're on a Roll!

ST Sep 28, 2006
EM3 stream to be dropped from 2008
Pupils will be grouped according to ability in specific subjects

By Jane Ng

THE EM3 stream, on the way out over the past few years, is finally being scrapped.

The hugely unpopular stream - which groups the weakest primary school pupils together - will be junked in 2008.

Students will instead be banded according to their strengths in specific subjects.

For example, a student strong only in mathematics will study it at the standard PSLE level - but he will take English and Mother Tongue at the easier foundation level, which covers the basics.

Currently, he would be studying all three at the foundation level - branding him as a weak student.

The change, which will take effect for students entering Primary 5 in 2008, was announced yesterday by Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam at his ministry's annual Work Plan Seminar.

It is the culmination of a series of amendments made to the primary school streaming system over the past few years.

In 2004, the EM1 and EM2 streams were merged, allowing pupils to take Higher Mother Tongue, which was previously offered only to those in EM1.

Before that, EM1 students did both Mother Tongue and English at a higher level, while EM2 pupils took Mother Tongue as a second language.

The lines were blurred further that year, when schools were given the go-ahead to merge the EM3 stream with the rest of the cohort for non-academic subjects such as music and art.

For some time now, educators and MPs have asked for the EM3 stream to be done away with altogether, saying that it hurts student morale.

Another good move by the Singapore government, how surprising. Perhaps Tharman has finally educated himself about the well-documented Rosenthal Effect. In a nutshell, studies have shown that young kids who are labelled and treated as "smart" will really become smarter (demonstrating a clear jump in their IQ scores over a one-year period), while young kids who are labelled and treated as "slow" or "stupid" will really become slower and stupider.

Research shows however that the Rosenthal Effect becomes less and less pronounced among older kids. One possible explanation is that older kids are more likely to have already formed their self-concept. That is to say, due to their experiences in their younger years, they already believe that they are smart (or stupid), and therefore behave accordingly. If negative labelling has already damaged a child's self-esteem and self-concept in his earlier years, it becomes harder to later convince him that he actually is bright and has the capability to do well.

We will never be able to quantify how badly the self-esteem of older generations of Singaporeans had been damaged by streaming in our education system. Still, at least it looks that the system will be going less wrong in the future. Hopefully, the sad state of affairs described here will one day become a thing of the past.

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Technorati: Singapore; education.

A Major Change in Philosophy

Sep 28, 2006
Courts to review sentencing guidelines
CJ wants to strike new balance between punishing and rehabilitating offenders

By Tanya Fong

THE courts are reviewing sentencing guidelines for major offences carrying jail terms in order to strike a new balance between punishing and rehabilitating offenders.

Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong yesterday said a criminal justice system has to go beyond meting out punishment for crime: It should hand down appropriate penalties, reform the criminal and reintegrate him into society.

A 'holistic approach' would be needed for all this to come together, he added - and this will involve not only players within the prison walls, but also social workers, the offender's family and society.

First off, he said, the courts have to make the sentence fit not only the offence, but also the offender, and consider his potential for correction.

Opening a conference on the rehabilitation of ex-offenders, he noted that judges were pulled two ways when weighing punishment against potential for rehabilitation.

He said the law ' must provide a rational and principled basis to reconcile these competing tensions'.

Those in legal circles have called this a shift in thinking from current legal practice.

For Association of Criminal Lawyers president Subhas Anandan, it is 'a giant step forward'.

He said: 'I don't think it means that the courts are getting soft on crime. It means there will be more sentencing alternatives and room for compassion. The solution used to be just jail, jail, jail.'

The CJ himself is chairing the panel drawing up the new sentencing guidelines, which will pave the way for jail terms proportionate to the harm the offenders have done the community, and yet also conform with the community's cultural and moral values.

This is the latest of many initiatives he has introduced since becoming CJ in April.

In June, he instituted the Community Court, where judges have been handing down alternative, non-custodial penalties for young offenders and the mentally ill.

Pressing the need for the review, CJ Chan said those who are rehabilitated are likely to stay on the straight and narrow, which makes for better public safety.

He said that each time a judge decides to punish an offender, he must also ask himself: 'Why punish?', so that he will remember that the punishment 'should achieve a societal purpose and cannot be an end in itself'.

The new Chief Justice is out to make his mark, and his kind of mark looks very different from his predecessor Yong Pung How. I like what I'm seeing. I would have loved to be part of the process, but it comes a bit late for me. If this had happened seven years ago, I think I would have stayed on in the Legal Service to do my part, despite the many other warts in the system. But back then I had enough of a lousy system and among other things, I wanted to get out before they made me get someone hanged.

Traditionally, criminal punishment in our system comes in only three main forms - imprisonment, caning and/or fine. This is rather feeble, considering that criminals come in such a dazzling range of varieties - from the violent gangster to the old grandmother who rented a room to an illegal immigrant; from the mentally-ill flasher to the high-IQ rogue trader; from the teenager making love to his underaged teenage girlfriend, to the robbers of 4-D outlets; from the helpless drug addict, to the cool, calculating drug trafficker.

Human beings are pretty complex. You ... CAN'T ... just either lock them up, fine them, cane them or hang them. There must be more alternatives.

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On Young Singaporeans

ST Sep 24, 2006
PM to young: Help make S'pore better
By Peh Shing Huei

THEY told Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong they wanted to engage the Government, to contribute and be heard.

But the question that several young Singaporeans had at a dialogue with him yesterday was how. A youth parliament perhaps? Or internships with ministers, through blogs, or more such dialogues?

Mr Lee listened intently, interacting with the 220 in the audience at the Supreme Court auditorium, and gave this assurance: His Government recognises and encourages them to be a part of the process here.

What was important, he said, was not so much the medium used.

'What you really need is also not just the medium but to be on the same wavelength as the young people, to know what the young people are concerned about and to be able to talk to them so that they connect, their concerns, their issues,' he said.

He told the audience that included students, civil servants, representatives from the media, youth and voluntary organisations that their generation 'had been prepared to the best of our ability'.

Picking up a point from one participant who noted a recent survey which said youths wanted to migrate, he said they must ask themselves about their obligations to Singapore.

Reminding them of the seriousness of his pledge to engage them, he said: 'We're looking for a young generation to come along and take the team forward. And if you go to another country...will you be heard? What will be your impact on public life on the community in a country with a few hundred million people?'

They must, instead, stay and make a difference.

'If I say I don't like this, I'm fed up, let's go, I think that's a great pity. We would have lost somebody in whom we've put a lot of hope, and I think Singapore will be worse off.

'But if we say this is not good, I'm going to make a nuisance of myself until I fix it, that's different. Then I think there's hope for Singapore. You stand your ground and you make it better.

What is it you are unhappy with, let's get that changed...You must have the optimal degree of unhappiness - just right, and the conviction to make a change.'

This time, PM Lee displayed more PR savvy. At least he didn't ask the young Singaporeans whether they would support his "hip and happening" cheerleaders and balloon clappers.

But based on the forum that PM Lee's daddy had with young Singaporeans just a few months ago, I wouldn't bet two dollars that "the government recognises and encourages young people to be a part of the process here". Somehow, the term "radical English-educated young" does not sound encouraging.

On the positive side, I have to say that this particular group of young Singaporeans made an impressive attempt to become part of the process, and certainly displayed some serious conviction to make a change.

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Technorati: Singapore.