Some Horror Stories

De Maitre’s post on the qualities of a good teacher is truly enlightening. Education is an important task that has effects not just on the individual level, but on the national level as well.

Like a friend of mine, currently a relief teacher says: “it’s easy to be a teacher, difficult to be a good teacher.”

But I am confident in saying that such disappointing teachers that De Maitre has mentioned are the exception, rather than the norm in Singapore. At least, even if we say that the case studies are reflective of the plummeting standards of teaching in Singapore, Singapore ultimately still has one of the best educational systems in the world today.

And that across the board, from primarily to secondary, to pre-university (junior colleges and polytechnics), to ITEs, and finally, the big three (NUS, NTU and SMU).

This is because in our education system is reinforced by an effective system based on the principles of meritocracy.

However, not all countries share the same strengths in their education system as we have. In fact, you’ll be surprised that their education standards are not reflective of their international status.

I’m going to talk about the horrors of the US and Chinese education system.


First, the US. It is ironic that the United States of America, the remaining superpower in the world, in the forefront of science and technology, has a public education system that falls way below international standards.

I’ll give you a simple example, just to give you a sense of the magnitude of the problem. A journalist conducted identical tests to high school students from Belgium and the US, and the results showed that the Belgian students scored 76%, in comparison to 47% of the US students.

And a worse case: many US students cannot read (yes, read as in read a book, their textbooks, or whatever) even up to high school.

What on earth happened? That’s the most powerful country in the world?

Basically, three things happened to the US education system. First, education in the US is a government monopoly. Families have no choice in their choice of public schools, so if you get a lousy school, where teachers don’t come for lessons or don’t teach properly, that’s just too bad. Unlike the Singapore system, where there are common standards to be met, are strictly enforced, and more importantly, people get to chose; the US system does not enforce these standards.

Second, improvement in public education is severely hindered by the resistance from teachers’ unions. The teachers’ unions force schools to keep teachers even if they don’t perform. They make firing teachers very tedious and difficult, and do not cooperate with the state in improving education for the country. In other words, these teachers are just selfish.

Third, and related to the teachers, some teachers in the US just can’t be bothered. Tell you, they are far worse then the teachers De Maitre talks about. At least De Maitre’s teachers teach. Some US teachers don’t.

And what do schools do, since they can’t be fired (refer to previous point)? They put them in so-called “rubber rooms”, lounges where they chit-chat, play games and yes, still get paid.

This is ridiculous!

The problem for the US is a systemic problem, a failure at the institutional level. No wonder more and more Americans are opting for homeschooling or charter schools.


What about china? Actually not very much, just their exams system.
I did a post a few weeks ago on the Chinese university entry exams. The problems highlighted are just one aspect of the pitfalls in the Chinese education system.
You see, in china, the only way to get to a university is through the entry exams.

Unlike Singapore where there are many ways to get to uni.

Here’s a list:

With A levels (like I did)
With a poly diploma
With SAT
With N levels, then O levels, then A levels
With Higher Nitec, then diploma

In china, only the “high exam”

So people get desperate. Parents get desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So they cheat. If not, they try all the ridiculous methods, like pure O2, like “brain food”, etc.


So Singaporeans, be fortunate you have an education system that you can be proud of. Unlike the US students, who want to learn, but can’t. At the very least, remember US schools use OUR textbooks.

Our exam system is tough, but it’s far from The End. As long as we are willing to learn and make use of them, opportunities are always open for us.