Education

Loosening Of Bonds
Moving students around the way we do further loosens bonds in this fast-moving society.
Dec 27, 2000

K. Baskaran, 19, is a product of modern Singapore. That means he has gone through 12 years of education that makes it hard for a whole new generation to grow up and study together with classmates - until graduation.

Like thousands of others, he has gone through three different schools - primary, secondary and junior college - and five changes of classes as a result of streaming and other classifications determined by grades

In primary school, he had moved twice from one class to another because his marks went down or up. In his school, like many others, the better students are placed in Classes A or B and poorer ones in "E"

Then a totally new secondary school later he studied in a normal stream two years before moving to express.

Every time it happened, he lost friends that were just made. "Like a ship tossed about the waves," said the poetic father of Baskaran (not his real name). "Since pre-teens, he had rarely stayed long enough in one class to keep friends".

It was in contrast to himself, who had started from Primary 1 to "O" level (then called "Senior Cambridge Certificate"), growing up with almost all his classmates for most of 10 years. Some of them meet for an occasional barbecue or hot pot with families (and a sprinkling of grandchildren).

Singapore's changes have long worked against cultivating long-term friendship, an important social asset. This is bad for a fast-moving, materialistic society where the new digital world is further eroding human contacts.

Home

Singaporeans are among some of the world's most mobile people. The majority in the first generation had, as affluence spread, moved from slums and squatters to modern living, i.e. public flats.

Their children carried on their moving tradition. During the 80's and 90's, almost every Singaporean had been on the move, upgrading from smaller to bigger flats, from public to private homes, some several times.

Children grow up gaining - and losing - neighbours as quickly as they find them. How many of you have never heard of residents who hardly speak to one another?

Office

The same friendship-shedding process is also taking place at the office. People frequently swap jobs, moving up or down their career ladders due to upgrading (that word again!) or economic restructuring.

Singapore is a fast-moving international city that is caught in the twilight zone of always going somewhere, never arriving. Keep the bags unpacked. It is always travelling, moving.

Now with the new economy and globalisation (don't forget the 150,000 Singaporeans abroad) this constant movement of the masses is likely to intensify.

Actually this is widening one's circle of friends as the pace gets hotter, but fewer are the long-term mature ones that are needed for a strong social foundation.

Short term friends drink with each other; the firm ones help each other. In wartime, the latter becomes crucial. Today many people come into your life quickly and disappear just as fast.

There are, of course, other reasons for the frequent shifting around of students. One is the fierce competition and parental pressures for their kids to go to top schools and better classes.

The capable moves upwards; the poorer ones go down. It is done with vicious efficiency.

The aided Christian schools that are among the oldest in the land feel the worst fallout. Their traditional relationship with students and parents who are old boys or girls has been weakening.

These are the Methodist, Catholic and Anglican schools, famous for producing generations of well-balanced, loyal students who leave their marks on society.

For generations, their former students had maintained links by sending their children back to study - or as teachers- and plunging into church or school-building work. It was a sense of pride and loyalty. This loss is continuing.

In the past, students were rarely expelled for poor results except in extreme cases. They had a simple credo: To educate those sent to them to the best of their ability without classification based on grades.

Under the grading system, missionary schools are sending away weaker students while many bright ones are leaving them for higher-ranking ones. Loyalty ranks lower than the paper chase.

Several years ago, the issue hit the spotlight when the blue-chip Methodist Girls School sent away five girls after they failed a year-end exam and raised a public furore.

The girls flopped their Secondary 2 exam and had to be demoted to the slower learning "Normal" course. Since it did not run such classes, they were told to leave.

It raised a question about the duty of a school: Is it to improve its academic ranking or perform its duty to educate even the weakest?

The issue is splitting society. By instinct, a school like MGS, with long traditions, will probably prefer to keep all its students, good or bad, but reality limits its choice.

For every parent who wanted them back, another opposed lower standards. They wanted the school to climb higher. Caught between parental demands and traditional values, these aided schools face a no-win situation.

They can't just fight for ranks because that would further upset ties with their former students whose children are not high-fliers. Neither can they ignore ranking. That would drive more other parents to take their kids out for better schools.

This has led to calls on the government to stay out of the ranking business. Let the public - or marketplace - do it. There's much wisdom to this advice.

In the US, colleges and universities are also ranked - but it is done by private institutions or the serious media to be used as a general guide. The real judge would eventually be the employer.

So why is the government doing it here?

Big business and parents will have their own way of assessing colleges and people, anyway. And in this New World of entrepreneurs and ideas, it may not be less precise than the Ministry of Education, either.

It will lead to less pressure on students and a decline of elitism in education. More important it will cool off parental excesses.

Then if we work backward, students will not need to be tossed around like a ship in a strong sea from school to school and from class to class - with tremendous benefit for the people's bonding.

Seah Chiang Nee