I am so proud of you baby!

Baby's first article submission about our educational system was successfully published on today's Straits Times website. First attempt and you got a positive response - Well done dear! I am so proud of you. Keep up the excellent job!!

"Private tuition: Is this the face of primary education?"

WHAT does it say about the state of our education system when private tuition services blossom into a multimillion-dollar industry?

Is our educational curriculum so cumbersome that the lessons cannot be adequately taught within the six to eight hours of each school day?

Or are our teachers so incompetent that, at the end of each day, half the children leave their schools totally clueless about the lessons taught earlier in classes?

A friend was flabbergasted recently to discover a group of K2 students struggling over mathematical concepts that used to be taught in Primary 4.

Why should we rob our children of their childhood and burden them with a curriculum which is ridiculously beyond their age-appropriate mental capabilities? Are we unfairly setting them up for failure?
How then can we reasonably expect our children to develop a love for the subjects they learn?

I remember my own primary school days when I had time to play 'hide-and-seek' after school and spend hours doodling cartoons. Not a minute was spent on tuition. It did not stop me from topping my PSLE cohort, getting into a top secondary school, scoring straight As and winning a scholarship to study overseas.

The curriculum could be easily understood and thus adequately mastered within the allotted time. Sadly, this no longer seems to be the case, particularly at the level of primary education.

Two years ago, I was a volunteer manning a crisis hotline when I answered a distress call at 9.30pm. The caller was a nine-year-old girl. She was calling on behalf of her classmate who was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, having had to complete one worksheet after another. It was a classic case of kiasu parents who had unwittingly become victims of an overzealous education system. The number of workbooks they bought for their nine-year-old? Forty-two.

Is this then the face of Singapore's primary education? Is it any wonder that some families have migrated elsewhere while some others have resorted to home schooling?
How creative and resilient will be our workforce when they are bred on a diet of worksheets?

Children should be able to spend more time outside the classroom where life - itself a great teacher - can provide an even more enriching education.
If this calls for an overhaul of our primary education curriculum, so be it. After all, sticking our heads in the sand and pretending everything is fine has never been the Singaporean way.

Yusri Ithnin