A levels vs ITE
There's an article published recently regarding the quality of educational facilities for students who are the "best and brightest" and those from the ITE (institute of technical education).
It's causing quite a hoo-haa now with people arguing and posting replies all over the Internet and newspaper. But, what is actually the root of all these problems?
I am an A level graduate myself. Luckily, I managed to get into a local University, which in my opinion is getting harder now. I've been through the system and found that it is terribly flawed.
Why?
Students are labelled as successful and unsuccessful too early. At the age of 12, your brain is not fully developed yet. You may not even realise the importance of studies. All I knew when I was 12 was to play my day away.
But by getting them to go through PSLE which categorized them into express/normal academic/normal technical stream when they entered secondary school, to me is a little bit too early. There are late bloomers in them but by mixing them with the "wrong" crowd will cause them to be influenced by them. There's a Chinese saying, "学坏容易,学好难" I've always heard this in the past and I've seen it happening. I came from a neighborhood school, but my cousins all went to elite schools which already made me feel inferior. What about those in normal stream?
How can you only judge people based on a 1-time exam that does not even mean a lot in the future? I have friends scoring lower PSLE scores who are doing better than me now. What I'm saying here is that, no doubt, putting students into the various stream will allow them to study at the same comfortable pace but they are already stereotyped as losers/stupid etc which they are not!
行行出状元! Not everyone has to be academically inclined. An ITE student can be superior to an A level graduate in other ways. So what makes them less worthy of the facilities? It's all tax payers money. Also, can we look at this issue rationally? When are the ITE build? Definitely later in comparison to schools like AJC/YJC. It doesn't make sense for the JC to tear down and rebuild now. It's economically unsound and even if they go through renovations, the noise will render the compound not conducive for learning.
Basically, to that A level student, if you're really the "best and brightest", you will shine among the brightest stars no matter where you are. State of the art infrastructure will not make you any brighter. Be contented with what you have, when you compare there's always disparity. Just make do with what you have and make the best out of it like the rest of us. No point being sour about it.
It's causing quite a hoo-haa now with people arguing and posting replies all over the Internet and newspaper. But, what is actually the root of all these problems?
I am an A level graduate myself. Luckily, I managed to get into a local University, which in my opinion is getting harder now. I've been through the system and found that it is terribly flawed.
Why?
Students are labelled as successful and unsuccessful too early. At the age of 12, your brain is not fully developed yet. You may not even realise the importance of studies. All I knew when I was 12 was to play my day away.
But by getting them to go through PSLE which categorized them into express/normal academic/normal technical stream when they entered secondary school, to me is a little bit too early. There are late bloomers in them but by mixing them with the "wrong" crowd will cause them to be influenced by them. There's a Chinese saying, "学坏容易,学好难" I've always heard this in the past and I've seen it happening. I came from a neighborhood school, but my cousins all went to elite schools which already made me feel inferior. What about those in normal stream?
How can you only judge people based on a 1-time exam that does not even mean a lot in the future? I have friends scoring lower PSLE scores who are doing better than me now. What I'm saying here is that, no doubt, putting students into the various stream will allow them to study at the same comfortable pace but they are already stereotyped as losers/stupid etc which they are not!
行行出状元! Not everyone has to be academically inclined. An ITE student can be superior to an A level graduate in other ways. So what makes them less worthy of the facilities? It's all tax payers money. Also, can we look at this issue rationally? When are the ITE build? Definitely later in comparison to schools like AJC/YJC. It doesn't make sense for the JC to tear down and rebuild now. It's economically unsound and even if they go through renovations, the noise will render the compound not conducive for learning.
Basically, to that A level student, if you're really the "best and brightest", you will shine among the brightest stars no matter where you are. State of the art infrastructure will not make you any brighter. Be contented with what you have, when you compare there's always disparity. Just make do with what you have and make the best out of it like the rest of us. No point being sour about it.
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