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the singaporean way

http://economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9989914

This is a brilliant and insightful piece on the education industry!

in particular, i liked this bit:

"Begin with hiring the best. There is no question that, as one South Korean official put it, “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” Studies in Tennessee and Dallas have shown that, if you take pupils of average ability and give them to teachers deemed in the top fifth of the profession, they end up in the top 10% of student performers; if you give them to teachers from the bottom fifth, they end up at the bottom. The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else."

- The Economist

teacher allocation is something i feel strongly about. why do the best schools get the best teachers? this is a contentious issue, i suppose, but from what i gather from various sources (sister, friends etc), it seems to me that the better teachers are being siphoned off to the best schools. conversely, the average quality (there are exceptions!) of teachers in a neighborhood school seems to be distinctly lower. i can't prove this with statistics, but i think my gut feel is pretty close. after all, the top schools are mostly independent and have autonomy in choosing their own teachers. the incentive to teach in a top school is obvious, coupled with the independent schools' ability to choose the best teachers available to them, it is no wonder they get the best, though there are some teachers who are posted there by the ministry. talk about market power.

if indeed the above study is accurate, then equality within the education system, and possibly within singapore's society, could be improved by allocating the best teachers to the weaker schools. in practice, i doubt the relationship is so direct, but surely it will make a difference!

Then maybe, we wouldnt see such a huge gulf in standards between the top 20 secondary schools and the next 20 ones. of course, there are other factors for this huge gulf, chiefly the admissions criteria. the best schools take the best students, period. combine the best students with the best teachers, and u have scholastic hegemony!

giving the weaker students a boost by allocating them the best teachers could see them perform better at the O and A levels, and eventually at the tertiary level. the impact is felt the greatest at the secondary level, which is the student's formative period. the basics for higher learning are taught at this level, so a better (in my opinion at least) allocation of teachers at this level will encourage a more equal student population. furthermore, weaker students are discouraged more easily in general, since failure can cause a downward spiral. the best teachers may be able to help them get better grades and a renewed confidence, which is so vital in any endeavour. The brightest students, even if they are given so-called weaker teachers, will excel and be the best. definitely the performance of the top schools will suffer a little, but call me utilitarian for i believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people! roar! besides, the gains made by the weaker students will most probably outweigh the losses made by the brighter students, so this represents a hicks-kaldor improvement, making the education system more efficient (i hope i got this theory right).

eventually, what singapore will get is a workforce with better higher-order thinking skills. the average ability of the workforce will be higher, with less inequality. this translates into more competitive workers and a more equal society. once again, my theorizing is based on two assumptions:

1. there is a difference in the average quality of teachers in the top and bottom schools
2. better teachers will make a tangible difference to weaker students


another point in the article was that the most important factor in a successful education system is the quality of the teachers. What this means is that the success of the singaporean education system, which employs teachers from the top 30% of graduates, is built on the high quality of its teachers, and less on its curriculum! by curriculum, i mean the style of teaching and learning (rote application, the irony). hopefully, our system will move away from the current one, which has its benefits, to a true application-based learning model. the integrated programme is a baby step towards that eventual target, but hardly enough (or effective, as it currently seems). so let's go MOE *clap clap*!




woah this is a long long long entry, and the most intellectual one i've ever made. this is something i've always felt strongly about though.

back to the suck.

finally

finally, all the money for the boat has been collected! ALL $2830 (from my batch at least)!!! accomplishment.

passed the money to mr koh yst. shit everytime i go back to rj i keep seeing the same old faces, i bet they think im damn no-lifer (i know many of u will agree but WHATEVER haha i had official business). slacked around in the gym after that and had a very amusing talk with daojie, telling me about the latest chicks in town! no la, it was just a casual conversation. apart from that my sexybag got insulted a couple of times yet again.

had my first driving lesson yst as well... it was quite cock, bad attitude driving instructor can go... nvm. the clutch was abit weird and quite psychomotor. for some reason its so much easier to transit from 1st to 2nd gear than to just start moving off in 1st gear. actually the gear change feels abit like kayak kicking.

now i need to schedule my next driving lesson, but the guy is not picking up my calls damn.

was just browsing through an article on the monk protest in myanmar just now. apparently the IMF and world bank recommended the junta to lower fuel subsidies at the end of last year, due to its terrible budget deficit. i don't know whether this recommendation had any bearing on the junta's decision to slash fuel subsidies (even if it did, was the cut in subsidies meant to be this large?), the eventual spark that led to the protests. neither am i denying that the resentment towards the junta made a showdown between myanmar's people and its rulers inevitable sooner or later. it is just interesting to note whether the IMF and world bank considered the consequences to their policy recommendation, if it had indeed been taken up.

anw i think the west's and asia's insistence on using burma and myanmar respectively is amusing.

yo homies

bye bye jilyn, we will miss u for the best part of the next 3 or 4 years!!!

and much thanks goes out to gerbert for buying me my 5 month belated birthday present.

this week is set to be a sucky one. i can feel it in my fingers.

i had duty last night, and im going to have duty again tmr night. ahhh.

approximately 15 months to ORD.

BACK FROM HONG KONG!!!! (for the second time this year:)

my trip to hk was not bad on the whole, though it was punctuated with a stomach upset and a fever. still, nothing daunts a soldier of the SAF. i was quickly back on my feet to die another day.

so here is what i've bought...

1. clothes - 3 tops, 2 bottoms, some socks
2. 1 pair of shoes
3. 1 belt
4. 1 CK perfume
5. alcohol - 1 glenfiddich whiskey, 1 baileys
6. tonnes of vcds
7. 1 pair of act cool chao ah beng shades

i wasnt my usual greedy self in hk due to my bout of intestinal discomfort, so moderation was the order of the day during meals. one good thing about travelling with parents is that my spending power increases exponentially. not only did i have a larger amount of disposable cash, i also had the holy grail of shopping too - THE CREDIT CARD. the food was good at times, but it was generally too salty and oily for my liking. one such (unhealthy) meal once in a while is fine, but once every few hours is really overkill.

the shopping in hk is really good, i must say. the prices are by no means cheap, in fact they are comparable or even higher than singapore's, but the variety and choice available is simply overwhelming! the people there dress much better too; of course u have the usual slobs, but in general, the fashion scene there is pretty good.

btw i stayed in kimberly hotel again! the same hotel i stayed in when i was last in hk with d!nGs yabbie and amishrake earlier this year. shopping there is fantastic so if any of uall wanna go to hk do check kimberly out! one thing that annoyed me abt the hotel room was the state of its beds. i was practically sleeping on the springs wtf it was so hard! the pillow gave me a sore neck too. thankfully i asked for another pillow after a couple of nightmarish nights.

oh.. speaking of nightmarish nights, i was quite sick the first night, with a mild diarrhoea (i think i got the spelling right :) and fever. i had a really weird dream; i think it was of some bombing (mightve been bombing), and i woke up with a start at 1245 am of SEPTEMBER 11 2007! wow mightve been an omen hmhm. but clearly it wasnt cuz the news the next day didnt mention any significant happening.

ok thats all for now! ive got WORK tmr believe it or not.




ps. the hk girls are damn hot. i dont know why, maybe army is turning me desperate, but the girls i saw on the trip this time round are so much much much hotter than the ones i saw the last time. so now, my impression is that hk girls >>> singapore girls. oh well majullah singapura! may our girls strive for the looks of hk girls!

I'm a lemon

it is the 1st of september, 472 days to ORD. wake me up, when next september ends.

having duty now, going to have duty again on sunday sian.

so what have i been up to in the past few weeks? nothing much actually. the same shit, just different days.

ok i caught bourne ultimatum with the class and rush hour 3 with berbert. apart from that, i found out that i'm gonna be promoted to CPL Wong soon, but i don't know when... it can't be far now! the pay increase of $70 will be used to cover my transport cost.

i've been reading alot lately... in the past 3 months i've completed

1. The God Delusion
2. Can Asians Think?
3. The Undercover Economist

as u can see i'm not much of a fiction person :p currently reading The Shia Revival, which is a fascinating insight to Shia history, and to a lesser extent, Sunni history, and the Holy Bible. i've been reading quite some periodicals and editorial sites online too! oh joy, at least my brain will not rot (further).

Today is going to be an action-packed day; teachers' day lunch with miss wong and the class, followed by an RI GEP '04 GATHERING at RI!!!!! i'm quite excited about the gep gathering, i miss the gep days alot! no, not the elitism, but the special bond between an eclectic mix of cocksters haha! ahh the good old days, gone and irreplaceable.

Going to HK from 10-14 September! second time this year oh man, but what to do? my family wants to go there, so i tag along (and eat and shop non-stop) in good spirit :) after this trip i will still have 6 days of leave, so when shall i use them?

That shall be decided in due course.

Right now, I just need an MC for i'm sick of life.

real good grub

Hossan Leong doing a spoof of 'We Didn't Start The Fire' by Billy Joel! fantastic shite man!