This week in Singapore saw intense debates and discussions in two areas, namely the pay of our political leaders and entry tests for children’s admission into tuition centres. The former topic concerns our current leaders, the latter our future leaders. When looked upon as a single subject, it produces certain disturbing trends which will no doubt plague our nation’s soul, as it already have, to a deeper level.
Some enrichment centres for our primary and secondary school students conduct admission tests as part of their enrollment process. If your child fails the entrance test,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, then sorry he or she is not allowed into the ivory gates of the centre – and they are not apologetic about this.
In the Sunday Times today, an advertisement by The Learning Lab (TLL) terms PSLE as “one of Singapore’s most important competitions”. It is repulsive that an examination held for our twelve year olds are actually referred to in this manner. A quick check at the website of TLL reveals that their Math program will “show how a strong quantitative foundation can be a huge competitive advantage in students’ future corporate careers”. Under TLL’s Future Leaders Program , it boasts of comprising “landmark student leadership and academic development events to give your child a head-start in the corporate world.” The insane focus on the “corporate world” that these children are supposedly undergoing quality training for is a major problem. Is this what education stands for?
We take pride in the pursuit of excellence,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, and to be fair the areas in which these students should excel in is in the main academic ones. However the worrying problem is the overwhelming emphasis on future success in financially rewarding careers. In our society, education is looked upon as a mean to financial ends. This mindset has to be changed.
The ministerial salary pay review has been concluded with a tweaked formula. Salaries of political appointees are now pegged against a larger pool – the top 1,000 Singaporean earners instead of the previous benchmark of top 48 earners in 6 professions. What has not changed is the focus on rewarding our leaders with top salaries.
If you would consider the education culture explored above, it would not seem all too surprising that things turned out this way.
After all, these top achievers worked their guts out since young with a view of securing a high paying career. Why would they settle for something less vis -vis their peers? There are a multitude of calls for this unhealthy manner of benchmarking the salaries of our political leaders to the corporate world to be abolished. How possible is it in this environment?
Let us be realistic and recognise that the best students who excel academically and non-academically are often very successful in their adult life. In terms of ability, they no doubt fit the bill in occupying a stressful and intellectually challenging position of a political leader. Look at the developed nations and you will see that political leaders around the world not only excelled academically when they were students, but were active leaders in their own field before entering politics.Smooth-On is your source for Mold Making and casting materials including silicone rubber and urethane rubber,
A cursory glance at our political leadership reveals men and women of outstanding resumes. Replete with Ivy League and Oxbridge pedigree, our leaders are often scholarship awardees at the same time. Many come from the civil service, the armed forces, and a small number from the private sector. An undisputable formula is thus entrenched in the minds of Singaporeans, where academic success equals to monetary rewards.
This is only a good system for a stick and carrot system in a soulless nation, but never healthy for the nation-building of a country that Singaporeans want Singapore to be.
We not only need to start from the young,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile. we also need to work from the top. We need to instil the concept of education as a source of enriching the minds of our young ones. It should not be considered solely as a tool for future financial success, but as something which moulds us as a person, a human being. At the top, the government needs to send out a strong and clear message that our leaders are not only borne out of the typical mould that we see today.
The Prime Minister of UK could well be a successful financier in the City of London with a first class degree in PPE from Oxford, but he joined the Tories fresh out from school. President Barack Obama of USA graduated from two Ivy League universities, but chose to become a community organiser and a constitutional law lecturer, when he could well pursue a career as a corporate lawyer which undoubtedly pays more.
These two examples not only defies the high education high pay formula seen in Singapore, but also provides UK and USA a source of inspiration and confidence in their political leadership. At the same time,China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development. their political leaders are nowhere as highly paid as our leaders.
In Singapore where our leaders tout unabashedly about the need for financial rewards to attract political talents, there is little wonder why many Singaporeans quickly lose any respect that we may have in them. As Lee Kuan Yew argued that “we live in a real world” when talking about paying our politicians the top dollar, yes we indeed live in a real world.
Some enrichment centres for our primary and secondary school students conduct admission tests as part of their enrollment process. If your child fails the entrance test,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, then sorry he or she is not allowed into the ivory gates of the centre – and they are not apologetic about this.
In the Sunday Times today, an advertisement by The Learning Lab (TLL) terms PSLE as “one of Singapore’s most important competitions”. It is repulsive that an examination held for our twelve year olds are actually referred to in this manner. A quick check at the website of TLL reveals that their Math program will “show how a strong quantitative foundation can be a huge competitive advantage in students’ future corporate careers”. Under TLL’s Future Leaders Program , it boasts of comprising “landmark student leadership and academic development events to give your child a head-start in the corporate world.” The insane focus on the “corporate world” that these children are supposedly undergoing quality training for is a major problem. Is this what education stands for?
We take pride in the pursuit of excellence,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, and to be fair the areas in which these students should excel in is in the main academic ones. However the worrying problem is the overwhelming emphasis on future success in financially rewarding careers. In our society, education is looked upon as a mean to financial ends. This mindset has to be changed.
The ministerial salary pay review has been concluded with a tweaked formula. Salaries of political appointees are now pegged against a larger pool – the top 1,000 Singaporean earners instead of the previous benchmark of top 48 earners in 6 professions. What has not changed is the focus on rewarding our leaders with top salaries.
If you would consider the education culture explored above, it would not seem all too surprising that things turned out this way.
After all, these top achievers worked their guts out since young with a view of securing a high paying career. Why would they settle for something less vis -vis their peers? There are a multitude of calls for this unhealthy manner of benchmarking the salaries of our political leaders to the corporate world to be abolished. How possible is it in this environment?
Let us be realistic and recognise that the best students who excel academically and non-academically are often very successful in their adult life. In terms of ability, they no doubt fit the bill in occupying a stressful and intellectually challenging position of a political leader. Look at the developed nations and you will see that political leaders around the world not only excelled academically when they were students, but were active leaders in their own field before entering politics.Smooth-On is your source for Mold Making and casting materials including silicone rubber and urethane rubber,
A cursory glance at our political leadership reveals men and women of outstanding resumes. Replete with Ivy League and Oxbridge pedigree, our leaders are often scholarship awardees at the same time. Many come from the civil service, the armed forces, and a small number from the private sector. An undisputable formula is thus entrenched in the minds of Singaporeans, where academic success equals to monetary rewards.
This is only a good system for a stick and carrot system in a soulless nation, but never healthy for the nation-building of a country that Singaporeans want Singapore to be.
We not only need to start from the young,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile. we also need to work from the top. We need to instil the concept of education as a source of enriching the minds of our young ones. It should not be considered solely as a tool for future financial success, but as something which moulds us as a person, a human being. At the top, the government needs to send out a strong and clear message that our leaders are not only borne out of the typical mould that we see today.
The Prime Minister of UK could well be a successful financier in the City of London with a first class degree in PPE from Oxford, but he joined the Tories fresh out from school. President Barack Obama of USA graduated from two Ivy League universities, but chose to become a community organiser and a constitutional law lecturer, when he could well pursue a career as a corporate lawyer which undoubtedly pays more.
These two examples not only defies the high education high pay formula seen in Singapore, but also provides UK and USA a source of inspiration and confidence in their political leadership. At the same time,China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development. their political leaders are nowhere as highly paid as our leaders.
In Singapore where our leaders tout unabashedly about the need for financial rewards to attract political talents, there is little wonder why many Singaporeans quickly lose any respect that we may have in them. As Lee Kuan Yew argued that “we live in a real world” when talking about paying our politicians the top dollar, yes we indeed live in a real world.
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