"In Singapore, everything revolves around excelling at examinations. School children come to believe that the rest of their life is hanging in the balance based on the results of these exams. And for the most part, it is. At such a young age, this creates an excessive and unhealthy burden on students to succeed and compete against each other. And while Singapore students are inside studying for their exams, American students are outside at football practice or rehearsing their arguments with their debate team, getting first hand experience in problem solving and working as part of a group."
For the rest of the piece, click HERE.
In essence, our excellent PISA Scores are steroid driven. The body (or education) is not really strong. It only looks so. It is not a true education. The kids learn for exams. In compo writing for example, once we get to middle of Primary 5, the joy of writing must become the drudgery of drilling to the PSLE marking schemes. Even parents like me (and some of my Mommies) who value a holistic education CANNOT DISREGARD the PSLE t-score because it determines the quality of the child's secondary school.
Too much is at stake.
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