Education In Singapore...

Have you ever wondered what the application is for logarithm? Like most others, including myself, one would not know. How is that possible? Didn’t we learn logarithm in Secondary School? After so many years of education, many do not even know how to apply this small topic of Mathematics in our daily lives.

So what do we do in school? We learn how to compete with other students. We learn how to socialise. We learn how to copy someone else’s homework in the shortest possible time and knowing that there is absolutely no way the teacher is going to find out it’s not your work. To many students, a subject is just to boost their overall score, such that they can apply for scholarships, make themselves or their parents proud, or just to move forward in the education system and into a better school.

Have you then wondered why the education system does not allow you to study what you really like when you were in Secondary School? You do remember that you were forced to study all humanities and general sciences in lower Secondary, and there were restrictive choices available to choose from when you reach upper Secondary. If one just wishes to be a writer at that point in time, he can choose literature, but has to study science nonetheless. The reality is, there is no such thing as focusing on one’s interest in Singapore. The reason behind it is very simple. We need a fixed number of engineers, doctors, architects, etc in our workforce yearly. I believe that the government has already planned out how many of each specialist we need in the next 10 to 20 years, and it is reflected in the number of people who are assigned the subjects / courses in schools. As humans are the only resources we have, we cannot allow students to choose what they like, or else there would not be a fixed number of specialists to fill up the workforce. For other countries that have oilfields, gold mines and such, they can allow their citizens to choose what they like to do, and their schools offer whatever courses a sane mind can think of.

Therefore, all students must be more understanding. The constriction of growth of their personal interest is the gain for the stability and well-being of the Nation. So, study hard. Be one of the specialists and aid our country.