STREAMING. Can anybody tell me who came up with this? I understand the notion on Singapore being tight in resources and our people is the only thing we have.. And we have to a nurture the “best” to compete with the rest of the countries so that we can prosper.. Did I get that right? However the streaming process only backfires and I can prove it.. To be fair streaming does create competition.. "negative" competition that is .. and sometimes it will also lead to suicides. Streaming is plain WRONG because it does more harm than good.

I’m gonna tell you straight up that streaming only breed one thing and that is arrogance. You are basically, indirect saying to the students that “The Express stream are better human beings that Normal stream students.” or “JC students are better than ITE students.” And the worse part is that they start streaming kids at a very early age.. you know what you get if you do that? - A bunch of kids with low self-esteem. Even a JC friend of mine said that his Principal made a statement during one of those assemblies saying that they were the “cream of the crop”.

And Mr. Tan (yes the same Mr. Tan) said in my class when I was in 6C… “The chances of any of you going to Raffles Institution is impossible.. You can’t even smell it!” That’s is his exact words. Now it seems like Mr. Tan treats RI like some sort of heaven. It did not occur to him that some or us do not even WANT to go to RI or even aiming for RI. Heck we don’t even want to move to Secondary School period.. At least, Primary school don’t have stoopid time-wasting subjects!

5) Compile data on jobs and occupation that market demands. This is very important. This gives the student what to aim for. We cannot have a sea of students taking art and eventually a high of Singaporeans being designers.. that would be overkill. Example: The problem with Saudi Arabia’s workforce, I read in an article, is that the majority of people have University degrees in.. guess what.. Islamic Studies! It is fine to learn that but if the majority of the people are experts in only 1 area, then problems will arise. It's like putting all your eggs in one basket. Now they (the Saudis) are dependent on Foreign Talents and most of the locals are working for the Government. Sound familiar eh?

6) What if some students don’t have a clue to choose cause they have no ambition. No problem, the school will choose for them and fill the void in the skills that is in demand but few take on.

7) Moral Education and PE stays. I will introduce a subject call General Knowledge. We gotta expose these kids to what’s happening all over the world and not just cocoon their brain to their HDB environment. One of the questions for the General Knowledge Class: What do you think the future of China will be and will it ever take over the USA as a leading super power? Or North Korea just tested a nuclear missile. Discuss. By the time the students are done with secondary school, they are able construct opinions of their own and not limited to voting for the next Singapore Idol.

8) And last but not least, the root of the education master plan is… I'm not gonna tell you just like that.. You play the gmae below to see what it is!:)

Email me your comments to happeepill@gmail.com

I was also posted to Primary 6C and my primary school was an all-girls school. For some of my classmates they love being in 6C & came up with slogans like "6C girls are sexy" get it? But for our teachers it's obvious we're dumb asses.

And what's worse they divided us into even smaller groups for example the 1st row will be filled with the average students, the middle row will be of the clever ones and the last row near the window will be for the stupid ones (so that we can stare out of the windows & daydream all day). And i'm in the last row! We're like the outcasts cos we're stupid & it's embarrassing to befriend us. When i was in Pri. 1 i can't even read to save my life. I would fail in everything except Malay then my dad will buy me more English storybooks to read to him every night to improve on my English.

Maths and me never got along sometimes i wonder how did i manage to scrape through Maths in PSLE & O Level. But through unexplainable metamorphosis i managed to be really good in my English and prove to my teacher and friends that i'm not stupid. I moved from the last row to the middle one & got myself into an Express stream.

Now to the Sec School life, i remember me and my partner will exchange our homework everyday. I really love English & Literature and my partner love Maths and Art. So every time we have hmw to bring home on those subjects we'll change. It's a "good" strategy that we end up failing those subjects. I also don't like the fact that they made us have good results in order to take Biology even though i am interested in Biology!

Biology is only meant for pure science classes and i was in combined science. Like wth?! And it's even worse that even up till now (i'm currently taking a diploma) i don't even know what i wanna be and what is my passion? Cos it's so jumbled up. The only reason i'm taking my diploma is because my parents & teachers keep saying that O Level is not enough & in 5 yrs time O Level holders will be known as dumberers cos even a taxi driver hold an O Level cert.

The poly life is not that great either. They still think we have some built-in chips in our brain to absorb every theories they dump to us and now currently in my 3rd yr doing my major project, i am so clueless in what i'm doing. We're even doing sourcing to find some experts to help us complete the project. That's how desperate we are! And to end this long email i still think JC/Uni students are not prepared to go into the real world.

The real world is not all about studies. I have an aunt's friend whose son is so smart that he was in Special then headed to JC and now to Uni but he can't work for nuts. Not even part time jobs, when asked he said he is scared to work cause people will bully him around. And he's a freaking NUS student! NUS = bright future but if you're scared to work then what's the use of it all? I'd rather be an ITE student who dares to work part time jobs and not living on parents' pocket money. Sorry for the long email just sharing my thoughts with you & thank you for reading if you read it anyway. =)

"But through unexplainable metamorphosis i managed to be really good in my English and prove to my teacher and friends that i'm not stupid." Streaming does push you to work hard but it's motivating you negatively. I bet even without streaming, you will still strive hard knowing that the other kids are doing better and knowing that you can't go on to secondary school if you fail your English, but the difference is that there is no resentment towards the Education System.

"I also don't like the fact that they made us have good results in order to take Biology even though i am interested in Biology!" I think what the policy makers are saying that, if you cannot deal with your other subjects, you cannot touch what is deemed a more difficult subject and in this case it's biology. You know how messed up that is? They don't even let you try! But what they have miscalculated is that, the student tend to excel in subjects they are interested in.

"We're even doing sourcing to find some experts to help us complete the project." I am no stranger to this. I was hired to produce a Secondary School boy's project once. The Dad paid me good money. And the boy can showed off his "work" to his teachers. So teachers, not all works are done by the students, sometimes parents hire professionals to get the job done.

"I have an aunt's friend whose son is so smart that he was in Special then headed to JC and now to Uni but he can't work for nuts." I think the guy is a rare case because most of my friends who are grads are working right now. However, the thing I notice is these scholars heavy reliance on the government for jobs.

i felt as such cause i am from those schools myself.. but truthfully, u sound as if u have a great dislike or vengence for people who managed to work their butts off and qualify into these schools.

to add on, seriously i think u are making generalisation on the conditions of the students in singapore at present.. i had been a relief teacher myself too and i think that the behaviour of the students actually depend on the school itself.. in some schools, even the normal tech or em3 students are well behaved whereas in others, the express and em1 n 2 can be considered as devils! i think it all depends on the principal and administration of the school..

another point i would like to make is that i agree with u on the situation of our students from the local universities.. i am currently an undergraduate from ntu and i agree with u on the fact that our students are not innovative.. in fact, from my own observations in school, i noticed that our NTU students are in fact book smart and not innovative.. not to worry though, the university is working towards entrepreneurship and innovations.. currently, there are new minor subjects in this field.. so i guess, insyaAllah in the near years to come, there are chances that singapore may have their own inventors..

Thats all for now..

in a manner that is beneficial. Because none can produce international companies like MYSpace or You tube and these founders were in their 20s when the started. (Actually brand names are not important, just create a company that produce jobs.) I have great hopes for our fellow Singaporeans and I do believe that we are capable of ANYTHING the Americans can do but the Education System is working against us, that is the point.

"seriously i think u are making generalisation on the conditions of the students in singapore at present.." This one hits like no other. I don't like shrugging a topic off by just using one word and in this case it's Generalisation. Governments make policies that affects the majority and not a small group of people. We HAVE to generalise- its not a bad word. Another word I can use is, I am "Profiling."

Profiling is a word detectives use to catch serial killers. They use general assumptions like "The serial killer is high likely to be White Male in his 20s" because all other past crimes done indicated that. When I make the Enjet Semut Cartoon, I said "Soccer and guitar, it is in our blood." I'm malay and I don't know how to play soccer or the guitar but I just put that in because I know for a fact it's true. If you conduct a survey among the races, I bet the Malays will be the ones busy with the soccer and guitar playing. Chinese boys would be playing basketball. To deny that and shrugging it off as "generalisation" is simply denying the truth.

The school you taught is just an exception. My profiling gut feeling says, the Norm Techs are the hardest to teach, followed by the Normal stream and the easiest is Express stream. That would explain one teacher in my school taking 1 month MC because of stress teaching 3T1.

"not to worry though, the university is working towards entrepreneurship and innovations.." It does not work that way. As I mentioned in the articles, you gotta start young eg. Primary School kids selling Lemonade etc. You cannot drown the kids with text books for 12 years in a row and suddenly at University level, they became innovative. That plan is bound to failure. I remember an ad in the newspaper, advising parents to take their kids out to the park, to play instead of studying at home to combat myopia. To me that is a waste of ad space because you are giving out 2 signals. On one hand you say go out and play on the second hand you pressure the kids in school, jamming them with books. What the heck?

And I must add that the Government have the knack to work on things super late. The year is 2007, Globalisation has not even stretch its legs yet. Once it does, together with a stronger China, and nothing is done with our Education System or it's taking too bloody slow to make changes, be prepared for lower wages and working round the clock to compete.

I like your idea bout making DnT, Homec into a CCA. So at least it will allow those who are interested to join and actually enjoy the whole process of learning. ( a very very important thing for any child, teenager even adults la). So when I am teaching, I am always worried if the kids are really understanding and enjoying my lesson..or are they just absorbing like sponges just because they had to in order to pass their examination.

I mean its frustrating la..coz u can see big potential in some students but they are somewhat stifled. I mean its not that MOE is not doing anything about it.. they are.. but they are making very small steps to rectify (the system, yes. the mindset, is a pain) ..they have this TLLM thingy going on ( Sg just digs acronyms) - teach less, learn more. well the idea is for student to do more groupwork and to think critically while the teacher basically teach less.. but this TLLM is only pertinent to some aspects..the rest is still the same.

Now, I've always preferred teaching the NA n NT kids coz they have more heart. I mean some of them are seriously loop de loop but majority are really, really nice. Once u got them on ur side, its a breeze. But one thing that is very sad...is that they have low self-esteem.. its not shown on the outside but rather unconsciously..and this I take every care not to belittle them in any way. (its hard for a teacher coz when ur angry..anything can come out of the mouth)

But there's the line already being created.. stupid vs not stupid..or more precisicely .. less academically-inclined vs the more academically-inclined. I mean seriously there's nothing wrong in mixing them all in class. the americans are doing it well..why cant we? (i am in no way endorsing anything american but we gotta learn frm each other rite).

Well, those boys who are in charge during recess are usually from these classes.

Hmm what you say is true.. judging a kid's future only when he is 9 years old.. dictating where I should go and labelling me as a "screw up" just because I can't catch up. If the government is a parent, it will be one cold, abusive parent. The one that you want to kill-while-he-is-sleeping-kinda- parent. Haha. But heng, they abolished that extended, monolingual bullshit.. but how many donkey years will they realise that Express, Normal and Norm Tech are messed up ideas too? But whatever it is, if you are one of the students being branded and hauled as an Extended or Monolingual, you didn't screw yourself.. The Government screwed you!

And I just have to add this.. who is the guy responsible for coming up with this word.. "Monolingual?" The name itself sounds sooo degrading.. like spastic-retarded-kinda degarding. Hellloo, the kid just have attention span problems.. he's not an idiot. How "lingual" can "mono" get? From now on, if I see something dumb.. I'm gonna use the word "mono". Like "How the heck did you forget to bring the movie tickets?! You are sooo mono!" or "This streaming policy smells like a steaming pile of mono!"