My opinions on this article
Straits Time Forum
Let every student have access to best teachers by David Chan Sig Yam
RECENTLY many good and insightful articles have been written on choosing a school and on our neighbourhood schools.
May I suggest that the Ministry of Education (MOE) distributes its best teachers (perhaps the top 20 per cent), good teachers (the next 70 per cent) and the not-so-good teachers (the bottom 10 per cent), equally among all primary and secondary schools.
So what's your definition of a best teacher, a good teacher and not-so-good teacher? While people are trying to remove the labelling of "elite" schools and "neighbourhood" schools, you are trying to come up with another social construct, another label, another stereotype.
This will ensure that schools, including neighbourhood ones, will get their fair share of the best teachers. Having very good teachers in neighbourhood schools could help some marginal students learn well and obtain better grades.
I am sure all the teachers are good in some ways and have their areas of expertise. Which teacher do not want their students to do well and excel in their studies? Is it only good teachers who could help marginal students learn well and obtain better grades? It is the role of all teachers to develop and groom their students, moulding the future of the nation!
Perhaps every two to three years, the best teachers can be rotated among schools, so that they would get the benefit of working in different schools, an experience that would better prepare them for higher posts in MOE, besides reducing the performance-assessment bias of being appraised by only one school.
Teachers are seconded to different schools every 3 to 5 years, it is not necessary that only "best teachers" are rotated. Do you mean that the rest get stuck in their respective schools?
To help parents choose a good secondary school, MOE should rank and publish on a yearly basis the 'value add' of schools, comparing the O-level results of each cohort with their PSLE results.
I think this was done in the past. There are value added awards for schools as well. Well... We have just shifted towards a more holistic assessment of schools by giving awards recognising their strengths rather than just merely comparing O-level results. Is there such a need that we revert back to the old method? Move 3 steps forward and 4 steps backward?
I believe value-add is a more important performance indicator for a secondary school than just the O-level results.
Well i fully agree value-add is an important KPI but can we look beyond results? Value add in terms of citizenship education, civics and moral education and the informal curriculum would be more beneficial to the holistic development and growth of a student.
The concept of value-add will inspire each school to do its best for its students and, in turn, I hope students will want to improve their school's standing, knowing that their efforts would have a direct bearing on their school's prestige.
Competition is good. But are we gonna label schools based on their academic results? We have just shifted to giving specific recognition to areas which schools have excelled in. Please do not corrupt young minds by making them part of the award-chase.
Hopefully, this will change students' thinking from 'What can my school do for me?' to 'What can I do for my school?'.
I like this part. Prefer to rephrase it as "Ask not what Singapore can do for me but what can I do for Singapore!"
Although bright students usually depend more on self-study than on their teachers, solid classroom teaching is still very important up to Secondary 2 or Secondary 3 because it is only after building a firm foundation in English and Mathematics that the bright students can do self-study for the O levels and beyond. Hence the need to have access to the best teachers in all primary and secondary schools.
Ehh... seems like you perceive the only goal of studying and academic pursuit is O levels and merely paper qualifications. Not true that bright students usually depend more on self-study than on their teachers. Some of the students are "bright" because they can afford tuition.
After five years or so, the distinction between elite schools and neighbourhood schools would be blurred as the latter would have the opportunity to build up their names.
Blurring the distinction between "elite" schools and "neighbourhood" schools is not the solution! These labels exist because society constructed them. The solution lies in the changing of mindsets of not only educators and policymakers but most importantly parents and students! There is no need to label a particular school as "neighbourhood" school. Can't people just make the effort not to term it as "neighbourhood" school but just treat it like any other normal school?
Poor students should choose the school nearest their homes, so that they can save on bus fares and spend more time helping with household chores.
After trying to brand teachers as best, good and not-so-good, now you want to label students as rich and poor? Are you like trying to create greater social stratification? No potential students should ever be denied the opportunity to study and excel even though they might not be able to afford it. You are really trying to go against the meritocratic values that Singapore is based on!
Over time, with neighbourhood schools gradually producing good value-add results, poor students will not be disadvantaged.
I don't see any correlation! Do you mean poor students can only go to normal secondary schools? Instead of helping and developing the students, you are developing the school's brand name only? Do you mean students choose a school based on their value-added results only? Aren't we suppose to be looking at what the school can offer as a whole? No offence, if you are a parent, I can sense that you are the typical kind of parent. Myopic. Narrow-minded. Result-oriented. Sad to say, you belong to a group of people in the society with the set mind that continues to perpetuate the existing stereotypes in society.
To conclude, from this article, it is apparent that the there is a number of members of the older generation who fail to have a paradigm shift from an efficiency driven education to an ability driven education. They still have the mindset that education is about achieving straight As and top scores, and a successful school is one which breeds the most number of top students with straight As. It is imperative that we engage this myopic community to change their set mind in order to have an inclusive and progressive Singapore.