Children Of The New World
Can new children cut out for the New World? It's the parents I'm worried about. By Seah Chiang Nee
Feb 9, 2001

A four-year-old is attending two kindergarten classes because his mother believes he needs a head start in life to cope with the new knowledge age.

That’s not all.

While other kids were enjoying their recent year-end holidays "Boy-Boy" was taking a grooming course after attending a language camp. His 12-year-old sister, who sat for a Mensa I.Q. test, was now learning web designing.

I met the mother during a New Year’s eve party. She talked about her children with machine-gun speed.

Was she being too hard on them? No, she replied. Some of her friends’ kids were buried under a load of mind-boggling tuition and still have time for ballet and piano lessons.

She was not exaggerating. How this and many other upper middle-class parents are raising Singapore’s new generation is a reflection of the times.

For a quarter of a century, Singapore’s children - like those in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong - have been under tremendous pressure to achieve maximum grades.

The results have been stark. The first, a happy one, is that it is producing world-beaters. Singapore kids between 12-14 years have been Numero Uno in Science and Mathematics for many years. They are far ahead of the West.

The other is a stressful trade-off. Raised in a society that rewards high grades, they are also among the most hard-pressed of people.

Some are driven to suicide. "No child ever commits suicide. It’s their parents and teachers who kill them," said one Japanese child psychologist.

This growing pressure is becoming a major problem for the nation.

More and more parents are pushing their children to become high achievers (whether they are or not). A minority of them are beaten or punished, not for failure, but for not scoring an "A".

In a notorious case, a mother beat her son because he asked her for help in a school project. Why? He should have known how to do it.

Since the time when the first scholar in ancient China locked himself in a tiny cubicle to learn the classical essays he hoped would win him a place in the imperial civil service, scholarship has been the golden key to success and power in Singapore.

It appears that the old imperial exams are happening all over again in modern Singapore.

Education here is about streaming, again and again, with the high-flyers eventually making it to government scholarships and elitist super-paying careers in the civil service or ruling party.

The pressures produced a tragic outcome last month. Simran Kaur, 12, came home with her crucial Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE) result and showed it to her father, before going into her room and jumping to her death.

She had changed her score of 152 to 252 and was discovered.

A month earlier, Yeo Tuan Wei, 10, was found dead in a block of flats. There was a note in her school bag. The one-sentence read: "Too bad, I can’t go to (elite) Raffle Girls’ School."

The number of student suicides is still relatively low. Latest figures showed that 371 people killed themselves in 1998 of whom 22 were teenagers (most of them over relationships).

But educational stress – often because of parental pressure – is causing more and more students being brought by their parents to see psychiatrists during the past four years.

In 1998, 2,358 (1991: 1,211) new cases of children below 18 were registered at government psychiatric clinics. Half of these were primary school pupils and 35 per cent secondary students.

A shocking revelation is that 15% were kindergarten children. Kindergarten is supposed to be a play-school that stimulates the mind but it has long become an institution of learning. By the time, kids go to Primary 1 the majority are already over-qualified for its lessons.

Many troubled children had eating and sleeping problems, mood changes and fears. Others were depressed and refused to go to school. or had stomach aches when exams drew near.

A recent survey of 9-12 year olds have found that one out of three find life not worth living because of fear of academic failure.

The blame lies in an elitist government structure where talent is measured by grades, similar to that in Japan. Revered as a good model in the new economy, the Japanese system is now a source of its woes in an "ideas" world.

Japan’s best scholars also end up in its influential well-paid bureaucracy where nobody disagrees and the same ideas are passed down year after year without challenge. In fact its children go through even more academic pressures than Singapore.

In recent months, the education system has come under strong criticism despite the academic achievements. One housewife pleaded: "Please save our children. Will the government do something."

But the education ministry blames it on parental over-anxiety. To its credit, it has reduced student workloads, de-emphasised exams and promoted schools projects.

"I believe parents contribute greatly to the pressures children now suffer. Supervising homework, employing tutors, buying assessment books, enrolling them in piano, speech lessons are but a few of the more common things parents do for their children," one official said. "Many of these are not necessary."

"I fear for the future generation," said one principal who wanted anonymity, "I wonder what sociological problems we will have? Parental neurosis is often coupled with an over-protectiveness that is damaging.

"Those kids who are told to just concentrate on their studies and not worry about helping out with the housework or to go out and enjoy sport, are growing up in a very lop-sided way."

It’s now getting to the source of the problem themselves – over-anxious parents. More parents are falling ill, getting violent and or consulting psychiatrists because of worrying over their children’s studies.

What about the future? The pressures will remain - with one hope. More and more academic under-achievers today stand as good a chance to beat the elite scholars by succeeding as entrepreneurs, innovators and designers.

The new economy has levelled the playing field to profit people with ideas more than those with just a good grade.
Seah Chiang Nee

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