Edu Minister open to PSLE alternatives

Link to Today Online article.

The problem with Singapore is that we want everything. Of course we can't have everything. In our family we think through and choose what we want. Life is so much better then.

You get to the best secondary schools by topping all the four PSLE subjects. If we somehow come up with new ways to test students beyond pen and paper academics, the stress can only exacerbate. As it is, children are already  forced to become good at what they might not be naturally good or interested in.

Beyond a certain point the all rounder is a failure. That is what holistic education could easily take us to. Outside school, when you are good at everything you often become good at nothing as others who are really good at something find their niches. That one thing they are good at is much better than you.

Of course most people here are just competing to succeed in the narrow Singaporean sense. The less risky path to success most parents see it as passing through the top schools. What they do not know is that after many years, this is likely to end in tears. Since only the small number of successful ones are publicly celebrated, the large numbers who failed to fulfill their similar ambitions are left to cry behind closed doors. Makes for a very unhappy and frustrated society.

Explore and know what you want first then be successful at it. Most people here put the cart before the horse. Like lemmings they chase after the same trophies. It is a terrible and foolish way to live.

In the end character is destiny but we no longer know what it is when to many success is everything.

We have to be less successful in the short term to have more enduring success in the long term. In our family school wise, the kids warm up slowly and gradually. What matters is how you finish and not how you began. Indeed we are faring poorly beyond school when foreigners bested us to so many good jobs. Meanwhile the Israelis do not aced PISA but are beating the living daylights out of everyone beyond school. I am nearing the half way mark of Start-Up Nation and discovered that the authors had a special interest in Singapore and how poorly we stacked up against the Israelis. Our government was our boon and bane.